rther magic over the scene. Almost red at first, the
full moon cleared as it rose, until the trees and bushes were touched
with a silver radiance, and the few people who walked about threw black
shadows on the greensward and gravel. In an arbor at the farthest end of
the garden a number of Chinese lanterns shed a dim colored light on a
table and a few rocking-chairs. There were cigarettes on the table.

By and by from out of the brilliancy of the tent stepped Macleod and
Fionaghal herself, she leaning on his arm, a light scarf thrown round
her neck. She uttered a slight cry of surprise when she saw the picture
this garden presented--the colored cups on the trees, the swinging
lanterns, the broader sheen of the moonlight spreading over the foliage,
and the lawn, and the walks.

"It is like fairyland!" she said.

They walked along the winding gravel-paths; and now that some familiar
quadrille was being danced in that brilliant tent, there were fewer
people out here in the moonlight.

"I should begin to believe that romance was possible," she said, with a
smile, "if I often saw a beautiful scene like this. It is what we try to
get in the theatre; but I see all the bare boards and the lime light--I
don't have a chance of believing in it."

"Do you have a chance of believing in anything," said he, "on the
stage?"

"I don't understand you," she said, gently; for she was sure he would
not mean the rudeness that his words literally conveyed.

"And perhaps I cannot explain," said he. "But--but your father was
talking the other day about your giving yourself up altogether to your
art--living the lives of other people for the time being, forgetting
yourself, sacrificing yourself, having no life of your own but that.
What must the end of it be?--that you play with emotions and beliefs
until you have no faith in any one--none left for yourself; it is only
the material of your art. Would you not rather like to live your own
life?"

He had spoken rather hesitatingly, and he was not at all sure that he
had quite conveyed to her his meaning, though he had thought over the
subject long enough and often enough to get his own impressions of it
clear.

If she had been ten years older, and an experienced coquette, she would
have said to herself, "_This man hates the stage because he is jealous
of its hold on my life_," and she would have rejoiced over the
inadvertent confession. But now these hesitating words of his seemed to
hav