Margaret Hayley, in very truth, dressed so darkly that at the first glance her attire might almost have been taken for black, and with not even one ornament to sparkle in the moonbeams, while that peculiarity of her raiment was made more notable by a light summer scarf or "cloud," of white berlin, thrown over her head to guard it from the night air, in a fashion somewhat oriental. Her proud, statuesque figure rose erect as ever; and the same stately perfection of womanhood looked out from her dark eyes and beamed upon her pure, high brow, that had shone there before the falling of that blow which had so truly been the turning point of her life. The cheek may have been a shade thinner than a month before; and there may have been a shadow under the eyes, too marked for her heyday of youth and health; but if so the moonlight was not enough of a tell-tale to make the revelation.
The gentleman who had so promptly attended to the comfort of Margaret Hayley, and who did not seem averse to picking up a quarrel on her behalf, was dark haired and dark bearded, round-faced and rather fine-looking than otherwise, a little above the middle height, and wearing the uniform of a Captain on staff service. So much the eye of "H. T." took in at once, and he seemed to keep his attention somewhat anxiously on the two as the moment after they turned away and walked back towards the piazza, as if he would gladly have caught some additional word conveying a knowledge of the officer's personality. Nothing more was said, however, that could afford such a clue if one he really desired; and but a little time had elapsed when another subject of excitement arose, calculated to interest many of the hundreds who had already become partially drunk with the glory of the moonlight.
"The moon is high enough, now: let us see how the Old Man of the Mountain looks when his face is silvered!" said some one in the crowd; and the happy suggestion was at once acted upon. There were quite enough old habitues present to supply guides and chaperons for the new-comers; and in a moment fifty or more of the visitors went trooping away down the white sandy road through the glen and under the sweeping branches among which the moonbeams peeped and played so coquettishly.
Two or three windings of the road, two or three slight ascents and descents in elevation; some one said: "Here is the best view;" and the whole company paused in their scattering march. A sudden break, opening upon a dark quiet little lake or tarn, was to be seen through the trees to the right; and a quarter of a mile away, hanging sheer over the gulf of more than two thousand feet sweeping down towards the foot of the Cannon—there, with the massive iron face staring full into the moonlight that touched nose and cheek and brow with so strange and doubtful a light that the unpractised eye could not trace the outlines, while the accustomed could see them almost as plainly as in the sunlight—there loomed the awful countenance of the Old Man of the Mountain. Some there were in that company, familiar with every changing phase of that most marvellous freak of nature, who thought that grand as it had before seemed to them when the sun was high in the heavens and the dark outline relieved against the bright western sky, it was yet grander then, in the still, doubtful, solemn moonlight.
Among those who had gone down to the edge of the little Old Man's Mirror for this view, were two of the sterner sex who happened to be without ladies under charge and to be separated from any other company. Directly, walking near each other, they fell together and exchanged casual remarks on the beauty of the night and the peculiarities of different points of scenery. They were the two who had first seen each other at the moment of alighting at the Profile little more than an hour before—"H. T." of the initials and the lady's smashed foot, and Halstead Rowan of the gymnastic spring from the coach-top. The first glance had told to each that there was something of mark in the other; and under the peculiar circumstances of that night they drifted together, without introduction except such as each could furnish for himself, but not likely to separate again without a much more intimate acquaintance,—just as many other waifs and fragments, floating down the great stream of life, have been thrown into what seemed accidental collision by a chance eddy, and yet never separated again until each had exercised upon the other an influence materially controlling the whole after course of destiny.
Eventually the two, both rapid walkers, had gone faster than the rest and become the leaders of the impromptu procession to the shrine of the Old Man, so that when the halt was called they were standing together and apart from the others, forty or fifty feet further down the glen and where they had perhaps a yet better view of the profile than any of the company. Both were dear lovers of nature, if the word "reverent" could not indeed be added to the appreciation of both; and standing together there, even in silence, the intuitive knowledge of the inner life of each seemed to bring them more closely together than introductions and a better knowledge of antecedents could possibly have done. Then the crowd tired of gazing and moved back towards the house, leaving the two standing together and probably supposing themselves alone. They were not alone, in fact; for under the shadow of the trees to the left, half way between the spot where the new friends were standing and that which had been occupied by the body of the visitors, were three persons continuing the same lingering gaze. These were the officer and two ladies who each found the support of an arm—Margaret Hayley and her mother, the latter of whom, it would thus seem, was also at the Profile under the escort of the military gentleman. Unobserved themselves, they had the two men in full moonlight below and could see them almost as well as in the broader light of day.
"Who are they, Captain Coles? Anybody we know?" asked the elder lady, speaking so low that the sound did not creep down to the two gazers.
"Both new-comers, I think," answered the military gentleman. "Yes, they both came in to-night; and one of them, Margaret, is the booby who stepped on your foot a little while ago, and whom I shall yet take occasion to kick before he leaves the mountains if he does not learn to keep out of people's way."
"I beg you will not allow yourself to get into difficulty on account of that trifling accident, and for me!" answered Margaret Hayley, while something very like a shudder, not at all warranted by the words, and that the Captain was not keen enough to perceive, swept through her form and even trembled the arm that rested within his.
"Difficulty? oh, no difficulty, to me, you know; and for you, Margaret, more willingly than any other person in the world, of course!" and Captain Hector Coles, confident that he had expressed himself rather felicitously, thought it a good time to bow around to Miss Hayley, and did so.