"I am not Erma," she replied, impetuously; "I am only Golden."
"Golden! What a beautiful name!" cried Golden's captor. "Golden—what?"
"Golden Glenalvan," she replied.
"That is prettier still," he said; then he looked at her more closely. "Are you any kin to Clare and Elinor?"
"Yes; we are cousins," the girl replied, frankly.
She forgot how strange it was for her to be standing there talking to this stranger from whom she had been desperately fleeing a moment ago.
But the dark, mesmeric eyes held her gaze with a luring power; the warm, soft hand that clasped her own, sent strange thrills of tingling sweetness through every nerve.
When she had looked at the dark, handsome, smiling face once she liked to look at it again. She forgot to feel afraid of him.
They were standing on the border of the lake. The moonlight made it shine like a sheet of silver; but Bertram Chesleigh had no eyes for its beauty while the fair, fresh face of that innocent girl was lifted to his.
He said to himself that in all his life he had never seen anyone half so lovely.