"Let me go!" she cried, with her blue eyes full of angry tears, "let me go! How dared you—oh, how dared you kiss me?"
But the strong arms held her fast, although Bertram Chesleigh began to realize that it was not a phantom, but a real creature of flesh and blood he had kissed so warmly.
He held her fast, and looked down with a smile into the girlish face that was so very beautiful even through the crimson flush of anger.
"Do not be angry," he said. "You should be glad that I have kissed you."
"Why should I be glad?" she demanded, in a sharp, imperious little voice.
The dark eyes of little Golden's captor sparkled with mirth at her indignant question.
"They told me up yonder at the hall," he replied, "that if a handsome man could catch and kiss the Glenalvan ghost its wandering spirit would be laid forever. Do you think that you can rest easy in your grave now, beautiful Erma?"
Golden wrenched herself from his clasp, but he still held her so tightly by one hand that she could not leave him. She looked at him with bright eyes in which anger and reluctant mirth were strangely blended. His quaint humor was infectious.
"Do you think yourself so very handsome, sir?" she demanded.
"A lady told me so this evening," he replied, unblushingly. "One must always take a lady's word, must not one, fair Erma?"