"

She hesitated. To Philip that instant of hesitation seemed a cycle of
slow revolving years. Timidly she lifted her head. She was very pale,
and her breath came and went quickly. He gazed at her in speechless
suspense,--and saw as in a vision the pure radiance of her face and
star-like eyes shining more and more closely upon him. Then came a
touch,--soft and sweet as a roseleaf pressed against his lips,--and for
one mad moment he remembered nothing,--he was caught up like Homer's
Paris in a cloud of gold, and knew not which was earth or heaven.

"You love me, Thelma?" he murmured in a sort of wondering rapture. "I
cannot believe it, sweet! Tell me--you love me?"

She looked up. A new, unspeakable glory flushed her face, and her eyes
glowed with the mute eloquence of awakening passion.

"Love you?" she said in a voice so low and sweet that it might have been
the whisper of a passing fairy. "Ah, yes! more than my life!"

CHAPTER XIV.

"Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet mouth;
Each singly wooed and won!"
DANTE ROSETTI.

"Hallo, ho!" shouted Gueldmar vociferously, peering back into the shadows
of the cavern from whence the figures of his daughter and Errington were
seen presently emerging. "Why, what kept you so long, my lad? We thought
you were close behind us. Where's your torch?"

"It went out," replied Philip promptly, as he assisted Thelma with grave
and ceremonious politeness to cross over some rough stones at the
entrance, "and we had some trouble to find our way."

"Ye might hae called to us i' the way o' friendship," observed
Macfarlane somewhat suspiciously, "and we wad hae lighted ye through."

"Oh, it was no matter!" said Thelma, with a charming smile. "Sir Philip
seemed well to know the way, and it was not so very dark!"

Lorimer glanced at her and read plainly all that was written in her
happy face. His heart sank a little; but, noticing that the old _bonde_
was studying his daughter with a slight air of vexation and surprise, he
loyally determined to divert the general attention from her bright
blushes and too brilliantly sparkling eyes.

"Well! . . . here you both are, at any rate," he said lightly, "and I
should strongly advise that we attempt no more exploration of the island
of Soroe to-day. Look at the sky; and just now there was a clap of
thunder."

"Thunder?" exclaimed Errington. "I never heard it!"