"Don't be terrified," says a voice behind me, and I felt an arm a-stealing around my waist; "I am here to protect you."
I looked up. My heart stopped beating. The stranger was tall, majestic, and the eyes that shone through his mask were blue as robin's eggs. He had on a black cloak, and the mask covered his whole face; but how could I mistake the princely bend of that head, the breadth of those majestic shoulders.
He drew me back from the crowd. I forgot Cousin Dempster, E. E., and everything else, in the ecstasy of that sweet surprise.
"You have forgotten the roses," he whispered, with a look of loving reproach.
I felt for the bouquet Cousin Dempster had given me—it was gone.
"I must have dropped them as I got out of the carriage," says I. "But when did you come?" I added, in a whisper, tremulous with bliss.
"Oh, I came an hour ago, and in the usual way," was his sweet answer; "but, not seeing the flowers, I doubted."
"Ah! how I prayed that you would grow weary of that miserable buffalo hunt, and return!" says I.
He seemed just a little puzzled, but at last broke out:
"Oh, it's all a grotesque farce. Why should wise men turn themselves into wild animals, if it is only in sport? I never enjoy such parties for themselves."