in November.

Only the lights of the sailboat were visible now, but suddenly a girl's
voice rose clear and sweet, singing to the accompaniment of guitar and
mandolin. The guitar throbbed; and on its deep chords the mandolin wove
its melody. The voice seemed to steal out of the heart of the night and
float over the still waters. The unseen singer never knew the mockery of
the song she sang. It was an old song and the air was one familiar the
world round. And it bore the answer to Dan's question which Sylvia had
carried long in her heart, but could not speak. She did not speak it
then; it was ordained that she should never speak it. And Dan knew and
understood.

"Who is Sylvia, what is she,
That all the swains adore her?"

"_Who is Sylvia_?" Dan knew in that hour the answer of tears!

The song ceased. When Dan saw Sylvia's head lift, he silently took the
paddle and impelled the canoe toward the red, white, and blue lanterns
that defined Mrs. Owen's landing. They were within a hundred yards of
the intervening green light of the Bassett dock when a brilliant meteor
darted across the zenith, and Dan's exclamation broke the tension.
Their eyes turned toward the heavens--Sylvia's still bright with tears,
Dan knew, though he could not see her face.

"Poor lost star!" she murmured softly.

Dan was turning the canoe slightly to avoid the jutting shore that made
a miniature harbor at the Bassett's when Sylvia uttered a low warning.
Dan, instantly alert, gripped his paddle and waited. Some one had
launched a canoe at the Bassett boathouse. There was a stealthiness in
the performance that roused him to vigilance. He cautiously backed water
and waited. A word or two spoken in a low tone reached Dan and Sylvia:
two persons seemed to be embarking.

A canoe shot out suddenly from the dock, driven by a confident hand.

"It must be Marian; but there's some one with her," said Sylvia.

Dan had already settled himself in the stern ready for a race.

"It's probably that idiot Allen," he growled. "We must follow them."

Away from the shore shadows the starlight was sufficient to confirm
Dan's surmise as to the nature of this canoe flight. It was quite ten
o'clock, and the lights in the Bassett house on the bluff above had been
extinguished. It was at once clear to Dan that he must act promptly.
Allen, dismayed by the complications that beset his love-affair, had
proposed an elopement, and Marian had lent a willing ear.