A moment later his arms were about her, and he was straining her passionately to his heart. "And you love me!--me!!" he ejaculated. "Oh, miracle of miracles!"
Sweet to him as a breath from Paradise was the whispered answer: "I have loved you ever since the night you were so kind to Jack Prentice."
It was three minutes later. With what passed in the interim we are in no way concerned.
"But consider, my darling, think and consider before it is too late," urged Dare. "That Miss Baynard of Stanbrook should stoop to love Captain Nightshade--a highwayman--a minion of the moon! No, it must not be! And I--I should be a scoundrel to accept so great a gift, unless----"
A hand was laid on his lips. "Oh, hush! I will not listen to such words. You steal away a poor girl's heart, and then you bid her think and consider! Too late, too late. But never, never will I forgive you for having wrung my secret from me! Yet, what am I saying? On one condition I will forgive you fully and freely."
"And that is----?"
"That without a word more of demur you do your share in helping me to carry out the scheme which brought me here. What that scheme is I have already told you."
"But, my dearest----"
For the second time a hand was laid on his lips. "Not a word! I will not listen. You will do it, if not for your own sake, then for mine. Do you hear? For mine."
"For yours, then, let it be," he assented, but for the life of him he could not see by what means she purposed carrying out her extraordinary proposition.