"There is not the slightest danger," said Bertram Chesleigh carelessly. "The old woman sleeps so soundly that a thunder-clap would scarcely wake her."
But just at that moment of his fancied security, old Dinah, in Golden's deserted chamber, was vigorously shaking her empty night-dress in a dazed attempt to evolve from its snowy folds the strangely missing girl.
Golden smiled, then sighed faintly. He kissed her lips before the sigh had fairly breathed over them.
"If you must indeed go, my darling," he said to her in a low voice, freighted with passionate tenderness, "tell me once again, my little Golden, how dearly you love me."
"Love you," echoed the beautiful girl, and there was a Heaven of tenderness in the starry blue eyes she raised to his face. "Oh, my dearest, if I talked to you until the beautiful sun rose to-morrow, I could not put my love into words. It is deep in my heart, and nothing but death can ever tear it thence."
She threw her arms around his neck, and their lips met in a long, passionate kiss. There was a silence broken only by the soft sigh of the rippling waves, while they stood
"tranced in long embraces,
Mixed with kisses, sweeter, sweeter
Than anything on earth."
On that hush of exquisite silence that brooded round them, broke hastening footsteps and angry voices.
The lovers started back from each other in dismay to find themselves surrounded by an astonished group.
Old Dinah formed a central and conspicuous figure, beyond which old Hugh Glenalvan's silvery locks fluttered forlornly in the breeze.