e the girls are? It would be a great
relief to find them both among the dancers."

"Yes," said he; "but don't allow yourself to be inveigled into joining
them. I could not stand the suspense."

I nodded, and slipped toward the drawing-room. He remained in the
bay-window overlooking the terrace.

A rush of young people greeted me as soon as I showed myself. But I was
able to elude them, and catch the one full glimpse I wanted of the great
room beyond. It was a magnificent apartment, and so brilliantly lighted
that every nook stood revealed. On a divan near the centre was a lady
conversing with two gentlemen. Her back was toward me, but I had no
difficulty in recognising Miss Murray. Some distance from her, but with
her face also turned away, stood Dorothy. She was talking with an
unmarried friend, and appeared quite at ease and more than usually
cheerful.

Relieved, yet sorry that I had not succeeded in catching a glimpse of
their faces, I hastened back to Sinclair, who was watching me with
furtive eyes from between the curtains of the window in which he had
secreted himself. As I joined him a young man, who was to act as usher,
sauntered from behind one of the great pillars forming a colonnade down
the hall, and, crossing to where the music-room door stood invitingly
open, disappeared behind it with the air of a man perfectly contented
with his surroundings.

With a nervous grip Sinclair seized me by the arm.

"Was that Beaton?" he asked.

"Certainly; didn't you recognise him?"

He gave me a very strange look.

"Does the sight of him recall anything?"

"No."

"You were at the breakfast-table yesterday morning?"

"I was."

"Do you remember the dream he related for the delectation of such as
would listen?"

Then it was my turn to go white.

"You don't mean----" I began.

"I thought at the time that it sounded more like a veritable adventure
than a dream; now I am sure that it was such."

"Sinclair! You do not mean that the young girl he professed himself to
have surprised one moonlit night standing on the verge of the cliff,
with arms upstretched and a distracted air, was a real person?"

"I do. We laughed at the time; he made it seem so tragic and
preposterous. I do not feel like laughing now."

I gazed at Sinclair in horror. The music was throbbing in our ears, and
the murmur of gay voices and swiftly-moving feet suggested nothing but
joy and hilarity. Which was the dream? This scene of seeming