iny gravel makes beneath her feet, as she hurries
rapidly towards the garden! How her heart beats! Oh that she were back
again in her pretty safe room, with the naughty Kit to scold! Oh, if
Aunt Priscilla were to rise, and, looking out of her bedroom window,
catch a glimpse of her, as she hastes to meet the man she has been
forbidden to know! A thousand terrors possess her. The soft beauty of
the night is unseen, the rushing of sweet brooks in the distance is
unheard. She hurries on, a little, lithe, frightened figure, with wide
eyes and parted lips, to the rendezvous she has not sought. And what a
little way it had seemed in the glad daylight, yet what a journey in the
silent, fearsome night! There are real tears, born of sheer nervousness,
in her beautiful eyes, as she runs along the garden path, and at
last--_at last_--finds herself face to face with Desmond.

"Ah, you have come!" cries he, gladly, going to meet her while yet she
is a long way off.

"Yes." She can say no more, but her fear has departed at sight of him,
and once more she grows calm, collected, and mistress of herself. She
keeps well away from him, however, and holds out to him--that "white
wonder"--her hand, from a very great distance, as it seems to him. Does
she distrust him, then? Thinking of this, Brian takes the extended hand,
and holds it in a clasp that though tender is light, and refrains with
much forbearance from pressing his lips to it.

"To come _here_, and at this hour! It is madness!" says Monica, hastily.

"A very blessed madness, then, and with method in it: it has enabled me
to see _you_."

"Oh, do not talk like that. You ought not to see me at all. And, now,
what is it? Kit said you wanted me sadly."

"And so I do, and not only now but always."

"If," reproachfully, "it is nothing pressing, would not to-morrow have
done?"

"To-morrow never comes. There is nothing like to-day; and how could I
have lived till to-morrow? I could not sleep, I could not rest, until I
had seen you. My heart seemed on fire. Monica, how could you have
treated me as you did to-day?"

She is silent. The very fact of her not answering convinces him her
coldness at the Barracks was intentional, and his tone takes an
additional sadness as he speaks again.

"You meant it then?" he says. "You would not throw me even one poor
glance. If you could only look into my heart, and read how cruelly I
felt your unkindness, you might----"

"I don't know what yo