I.

"BEAUTY unadorned, you know," said Paul, with one of his usual platitudes.

      Aunt Maria contemplated the speaker, as he stood cap in hand before the fire, with a distinctly unfriendly expression; but then she had watched the development of his irritating qualities for years; she acknowledged to herself that she was tired of this phlegmatic Saxon, so unlike her warm-hearted countrymen.

      "You are always so original, Paul," she breathed softly, with a side glance at the half-open door, where stood Ethel, her favourite god-child, her shawl drawn, gipsy fashion, over her head, ready to flit in or out of the room as chance willed.

      "Aunt Louisa says I'd better give it up, auntie. No one else will be in black, and I am not fit to be seen with my freckles and my red hair, and I've quite grown out of that white dress she gave me for the wedding. She says it's no use to spend money on a hop-pole like me. I've grown inches in the last six months, Aunt Maria."

      This disjointed speech was delivered in the sweetest possible voice, at express speed. It was impossible to accept it seriously as it was meant, and exasperated by Paul's deliberate ha ha! Ethel rolled her shawl into a projectile and threw it viciously in his direction.

      "That comes of wearing your sun-bonnet on your neck, instead of on your head. Aunt Louisa is right about the freckles; they are particularly large and brown. Freckles, you know, Ethel, are sun-spots."

      "Quite sure, dear Paul?" murmured Aunt Maria; "not caused by moonshine? You surprise me." She put up her glass for a moment to make mental inventory of Nature's dealings with her heart's delight, her god-child; soon to drop it with a peculiar smile. No niggard hand had dealt the gift of beauty to Ethel O'Hara.

      "Handsome is as handsome does," continued the obtuse Paul, under the impression he was making himself agreeable. "If you behave well, Ethel, you'll get on all right, and I'll dance with you, freckles and all, gown black or magpie colour."

      Ethel darted a bright glance at the speaker, half of amusement, half of grateful acknowledgment of what she felt to be a favour, for never had she, in her small experience, met Paul's equal in all that pertained to dress. But Aunt Maria did not appreciate the speech, and took up the theme quite sharply.

      "I'm not sure I shall let Ethel dance with you. You do not make so good a figure on the light fantastic toe as on horseback; while Ethel dances with genius. But seriously, child, I think we shall manage to dress you. And you would like to borrow the cornelians," she added, smiling as she unlocked the casket on the table beside her.

      "Of all things!" cried Ethel. "Only —— I thought" —— she coloured deeply, her superb blue grey eyes flashing with sudden inquiry.

      "Yes, dear, if you have courage to wear them. No opal could bear a more disastrous history, as you know, but — well, I hope I have outgrown the superstitions of my youth. I can smile at the horror with which I once regarded the poor beads."

      "I haven't a superstition," said Paul. "Not one! I never have had."

      "More's the pity," snapped Aunt Maria, "I like a man to have his superstitions; at least it shows he has some feelings; that he is no automaton!"

      "I'm sorry I can't oblige you, Aunt Maria," was his calm reply. "Superstition and I are total strangers. Still I don't want to be dogmatic, anyone can believe in omens, banshees, etc., till all's blue for aught I care. Live and let live is my motto. But what is the evil with which these harmless beads are loaded?"

      "Oh," cried Ethel. "It has happened too often for one to call them harmless; for even you to disbelieve it. It is death by drowning to the man who unclasps these beads from the neck of the girl who loves him."

      "How romantic!" said Paul. "Well, there's no water deep enough to drown me, at any rate."

      "Anyway your remark is outside the question," snapped Aunt Maria; "since you can scarcely be said to pose as Ethel's lover."

      "Paul? What a ridiculous idea!" The girl's sweet laughter rang the echoes of the lofty old hall. Paul possibly did not hear her, for he made no answer; the peat-fire seemed suddenly to demand careful attention. When he had arranged it with mathematical accuracy, he looked quite flushed with the exertion.

      "But really, Aunt Maria, one must be guided by reason in our century," he remarked, holding the beads to the firelight with a smile. "What rubbish it seems to attach power of good or ill to inanimate nature!"

      Ethel, on pretence of taking her shawl from Paul's arm, managed to whisper —— "Hush! say no more."

      "We do not agree on more points than this one," rejoined the old lady much displeased. "But come, Ethel, let us see how this old-fashioned gewgaw sets off the brown freckles and the red hair."

      Paul's disparaging glance as he delivered up the necklace gave place to one of approval as Ethel clasped it about her neck; even he was obliged to acknowledge that the warm colour harmonised well with the brown and red, so obnoxious to Aunt Louisa.

      "After all," said Aunt Maria meditatively, "a girl of seventeen is so rich in the possession of her youth that she need not long for costumes, pearls or diamonds. Never mind your old dress, Ethel, be happy. Many will envy you your youth and gay spirit."

      "Ethel could be young and gay in a new gown as well as in an old one," put in the prosaic one. "In these days girls dress a good deal, and dress, let me tell you, goes a long way in a ball-room."

      "You are too material Paul," said Aunt Maria coldly, "as if every young man thought as much of a well-cut gown as you do!"

      Paul smiled amiably, conscious of the absolute correctness of his view of the question. He often angered the old lady by smiling at her severe speeches, instead of condescending to argue the point any further.

      "Aunt Louisa says," put in Ethel, "that if I go, she will do my hair up tight and tidy for once."

      "Very kind of Louisa," purred Aunt Maria. "But as I am your sponsor for that evening, we will let my maid Annette manage this troublesome hair. Tell Louisa I will see it is in good form," she added as Paul and Ethel disappeared from the room on to the lawn. Aunt Maria turned her chair so as to command sight of the two figures.

      "She will be incomparable —— freckles notwithstanding. How like Louisa to want to curb those exquisite tendrils, rings of bronzed gold and copper dashed with black, like her eyes. Ethel with tidy hair! she laughed aloud. "And if Lord Glenville be only a grain as inflammable as was his father before him, farewell to the hopes of the Lady Paget, the Hon. Augusta and the rest of them. They can make their farewell bow to any ambitions they may have fostered concerning Castle O'Rooke."

      Paul, catching Ethel with rather undignified haste at the garden gate, asked in injured tones, "Why did you bid me hush, Ethel!"

      "Because, Paul, Aunt Maria's lover was found dead in the ford, he had taken her necklace in jest, it was in his breast pocket. It is an old tradition in connection with the beads. No wonder she believes that ill-luck follows them," said Ethel, with a long-drawn breath.

      This little scene was taking place in a small Irish Rectory. Aunt Maria was the Rector's sister, who had for years made the Rectory her home, occasionally leaving on long visits to London and abroad. She was Ethel's godmother, and was very proud of her godchild, who was niece to her brother's first wife, Lady Mary O'Hara, daughter of an impecunious Irish Earl. Lady Mary, childless, had adopted this bright girl, who had lost both father and mother. She had brought life and sunshine into the Rectory, and when his wife died the Rector felt he could not part with her. Louisa, the Rector's second wife, seldom left home, and knew far less of the world than Aunt Maria. She was many years younger than her husband. Paul had just left Oxford, and having read every "long" with the Rector, it had pleased him to come over now for a final visit, as he said. The Rector's wife was his aunt, but they were always sparring; and he was very much at home with them all. He enjoyed a fairly good income in the present, inherited from his mother, and on the death of his father would come into the family estates.

II.

THE spirit of festivity ruled the county, and the primary cause of these rejoicings was, that the Earl of Glenville —— the gay O'Rooke as he was often called — had stated his intention of coming to live and die on his estate.

      The young fellow had shrewd brains behind his happy-go-lucky Irish temperament, and knew the spendthrifts he owned in his ancestral tree had left him no other alternative. So here he was, and the county accepted him with rapture as a godsend, and exhausted itself in assurances of welcome.

      His first public appearance was expected at a ball given on the day after his arrival in the stupendous new mansion of the great mill-owner, Sir Owen Grant. It was for this occasion, at this gathering of the flower of the county, the brave, the fair, that the decorative effect of the cornelians was brought into requisition.

      Aunt Maria planned her arrival later than her impatient god-child would have wished. Ethel could hardly stand still in the dressing-room while her kind old friend put the last critical touches to her hair and gown, not because this was her first ball, but because such delay cost her a dance. When the last artistic suggestion was given, the superb, even gorgeous golden brown waves of hair were permitted a license which would have shocked the prim Louisa, and brought from Ethel's lips the remonstrance:

      "My hair is not very tidy, Aunt Maria."

      "It will pass muster," replied that good lady with a gleam in her eyes that Ethel could not read.

      Ethel's gown was indeed a sorry affair, but with the accompaniment of neck and arms white as alabaster, and the radiant face of one who loved life, and was drinking deep of the ecstatic cup of anticipated enjoyment, it would perhaps —— probably —— pass muster. Paul's serious countenance expressed approval as he came forward, himself faultlessly elegant, and accompanied the ladies to the reception-room.

      "We must see that Ethel gets some good partners," was Lady Grant's aside to Aunt Maria (she was a good-hearted soul and had known the girl from childhood). "I tell you, me dear, if she'd only a decent gown to her back, there wouldn't be a girl in the room to compare with her."

      "There isn't as it is, gown or no gown," said Aunt Maria, confidently. "She has the O'Hara beauty, and no mistake."

      "Ay, ay, but dress goes for something, Maria," replied the more worldly woman. "There isn't a boy here to-night but knows what the fashions are a deal better than you or I, Maria O'Brien, for it's quite two years since you were last away from the Rectory."

      Paul meantime had written his name solemnly on Ethel's card, and proceeded to lead her into the ball-room for a square dance. Aunt Maria, detained in the ante-room, was not present to witness the début of her darling. Perhaps it was as well, since in her heart of hearts she believed that her Ethel had only to be seen to be admired, whereas the owners of artistic eyes are rare enough in a common-place assemblage such as this. Nor had the girl a chance to show her beautiful dancing weighted by Paul, and, ere the last figure of the lancers was ended, a catastrophe destroyed all Ethel's hopes in one cruel blow.

      "Oh, Paul!" she wailed. The black train was wound about him, his clumsy foot was through it, the dress was in fragments.

      "Come into the alcove, perhaps we can pin it up; I always carry pins to a ball," said Paul, who had probably found his partners in frequent need of the same. But even his face grew long when he saw the impossibility of piecing fragments such as these together. Despair seized him, for Ethel's tears dripped large and hot on his fingers, which moved as deftly as his foot had been clumsy.

      He stood up presently, reflective while Ethel wept.

      "Shall we go into the library and look at the books?" he suggested. "You like books I know, Ethel."

      The girl shook her head; the offer of books at a dance seemed to add insult to injury.

      "Then let us go up to the gallery; we can watch the dancing, and supper is laid in the room beyond."

      Worse and worse!

      "No, but, Ethel, when we can't get the best, we've got to take the second best," said Paul, true to his platitudes.

      "We! you can go and dance, I don't want you," cried Ethel.

      "I can't and won't," said Paul. "I've done the mischief, and I'll stand by you. That is the least I can do to show you how sorry I am to have spoiled your fun; so come along out of this dark hole, and let us try to enjoy something, anyway — even though it's such a material matter as supper."

      Ethel followed Paul obediently through a series of corridors to a staircase which corkscrewed up to a gallery, which would have been devoted to ancestors had Sir Owen happened to have any. Failing these, good pictures covered the walls, works of art, worthy of careful study, open to all men of wealth.

      But what is the kingdom of art to a girl of seventeen, whose heart longs for fun and frolic, from whose rosy lips the cup of pleasure is suddenly dashed?

      "Stand here," said Paul; "only your head shows above the rail, and your hair is all right: I like it just so. I declare, Ethel, it does not look a bit red; it gets browner, I believe; and as for the freckles, it's just Aunt Louisa's crabbedness makes her torment you about them; they don't show by this light at all."

      Ethel's liquid eyes glanced gratefully at the speaker, who continued in a cheerful tone:

      "You're all right here, so I'll go and forage; I'll tell Lady Grant all about it when I get a chance, she won't mind what we do so long as we are happy, you know. I'll soon be back."

      "Happy!" wailed Ethel, permitting tears again to well from her brimming eyes; but being a creature of swift-changing moods, she soon began to interest herself in the beauty and fashion now thronging the hall below. At length an entrancing waltz floated in the air and Ethel, in prompt obedience to the rhythmic measure, tossed her gown over her arm and floated on the wings of the music.

      Presently she became dimly aware that the mirror opposite was giving back a second reflection, and that too of a figure in rhythmic motion; a tall manly creature, whose glowing dark eyes boldly met Ethel's reflected orbs, irresistibly merry. Their owner waltzing away from the mirror saluted with a brief "awful fun this," and spun away as though for a wager. His next advance was heralded by a suggestion. "Suppose we try it together —— our pace seems to suit."

      "No, thank you," very severely from Ethel. "I'm all torn to ribands as it is; I can't afford experiments." Then with a sudden descent from dignity: "Oh, dear! they've finished."

      "Not at all," replied the new-comer, signalling the leader of the orchestra, who happened to be looking his way. They repeat this waltz, and pray take a turn with me; it's so dull for a fellow to do his dancing alone."

      "If you'll be very careful not to step on my dress, I don't mind," said Ethel, melting at this pathetic appeal: so the two with a genius for the dance floated away together.

      "Oh, I say! Ethel and the O'Rooke!" from the astonished Paul, followed by a servant bearing material consolations.

      "My dear Paul!" cried the earl, effusively greeting the serious young man, apparently forgetting how he and his intimates had written. "bore" with a capital "B" against that worthy fellow's name not long since at a house party.

      Paul, drawing Ethel to his side, made the necessary introductions with more than usual stateliness; but what could suppress the O'Rooke. Then his roving eye fell upon the purloined dainties, and some of the interest he felt in the owner of that "gorgeous hair" was merged in the conscious pangs of a healthy appetite.

      "What a splendid idea! I'm starving. You men (to the servants) "bring us something substantial — and champagne. Do you hear?"

      What would not these grinning Irish lads do for an O'Rooke?

      The best was thrown at Lord Glenville's feet, and Ethel readily catching fire from the drollery of her new friend, forgot her woes and enjoyed her heterogeneous supper with the zest peculiarly pertaining to an impromptu such as this.

      The viands filched from the supper-room were drawing to an end, when they became conscious of the march of a stately tread. Utterly unexpected was the shocked:

      "Ethel!" It was Aunt Louisa.

      Ethel was hopeless. Hours of sermonising lay behind that awful exclamation. Her head drooped, and she gave an agonised glance at her companions. Why did Aunt Louisa always spoil her fun? And it was not the ready-witted O'Rooke who found the way out of this tangle, but the denser Paul, though the O'Rooke caught the clue quick as a flash, and knowing well that he was behaving abominably in thus absenting himself from the ball-room, had also his inspiration as he rose.

      "I shall trust to you then, Glenville," said Paul, steadily, as though continuing a conversation, "to explain how my clumsiness has driven us from the ball-room. I will see Lady Grant myself as soon as I can leave Miss O'Hara with her aunt."

      Here he permitted himself to see Louisa, and acted surprise in a most genuine manner. In his most stately manner he then introduced her to Lord Glenville, who insisted that she must go back to the ball-room on his arm, and dance a quadrille with him.

      Vainly did the gratified lady plead that her dancing-days were over; the irresistible O'Rooke carried her off.

      Paul, too, disappeared; when he returned he brought Aunt Maria. with him.

      "So you have been dancing up here, Paul tells me. Well, as it was a prank of that merry lad's the O'Rooke, we must look over it this time. Now I'm here, we'll let Paul go down and do his duty by his hostess. Off with you, Paul! The girls below are breaking their hearts for you," and she chased him away.

      "It would be a kindness to other girls to keep him here," said Ethel, half sorry to see Paul obey the imperative command. "I wonder how many more dresses he'll tear to smithereens this evening?"

      Paul, a little more serious than usual next morning, formally requested an interview with the Rector and Aunt Louisa, to discuss a question of some moment. Ethel was then in the garden with the dogs, teaching a puppy to retrieve, her gay laugh at non-success rising with an irresistibly merry ring above the yelping of her canine friends.

      The Rector as he obeyed Paul's request, gave a hasty retrospective glance, wondering whether he had done anything for which this very correct youth was about to haul him over the coals. Louisa jingled her keys, significantly, curious, but also irritated by Paul's reflective manners and slow speech.

      Paul then opened his subject by a denunciation of a girl's guardians who would permit her to appear at a county ball in an old rag of a dress only fit for a scarecrow. No one had ever believed Paul capable of such severity, Aunt Louisa scarcely recognised her every-day foe in this indignant warm partisan.

      "The dress was good enough," she cried angrily, "until you tore it up."

      "I've stepped on ladies' gowns before," said Paul, "the worst results being easily remedied by a few pins; they did not fall into rags that would not hold a pin's point!"

      "Well, well!" said the Rector, who loved peace at any price. "It's over now, and so no more about it, Paul. Your aunt means well."

      "I don't care what she means," said Paul sturdily. "It's what she does is the important point. Ethel's card would have been full; she would have danced all the evening in a decent gown."

      "You, Paul, to think so much of a girl's gown," laughed the Rector, who would have thought Ethel a beauty in any old dress.

      "I'm not blind," said Paul, "and I'm no better than other fellows. I don't like the girl I dance with to look a guy in an old black rag."

      Aunt Louisa's temper, a strong point from a vituperative standard, now was let loose on Paul, who held his own with quiet force. To the Rector's effort to stem the torrent, the young man had his platitude ready: "Deeds, my dear uncle, not words."

      "Deeds it shall be," said the old man, pulling out his purse, "and since it seems Louisa is not quite up to date in her fashions, I'll go and talk to Maria, and give her the spending of a twenty-pound note on the child, if she asks for it."

      Paul having gained his point, now took his usual stately leave of the obnoxious Aunt Louisa, and strolled forth into the garden whistling to the dogs. Ethel had, however, tied up her playmates, and was now disporting herself on the garden wall, hatless in the full sunshine. As Paul drew near, stepping more slowly than even was customary to him, she rushed at him and threw her arms about his neck with an embrace that nearly strangled him, conflicting as it did with his high collar.

      "I could not help hearing," she cried, as she released him. "If you and Aunt Louisa quarrel so loudly, I can't help hearing what you say. Paul! I'll never forget it of you, never."

      Paul as he settled his collar looked very red and severe. "Ethel," he said, "you ought not to jump at me like that. It was all very well when you were six years old, but you're grown up now, and — we are not really cousins, you know."

      "Not cousins!" cried Ethel, struck to the heart, the light fading from her brilliant eyes.

      "Why, of course we're not," replied Paul, quite impatiently for him. "You are the Rector's first wife's niece, and I his second wife's nephew. We are not in the least related."

      "And I don't believe you care a bit," cried Ethel, irrationally. Oh, Paul, why did you tell me? I've always been so fond of you," and tears filled her eyes.

      "I've meant to speak of it several times lately," said Paul, steadily, with an odd catch in his voice. "I'm —— I'm going away soon, you know."

      "Going away, Paul! Where are you going?"

      "Oh!" said Paul, "Jericho —— America —— anywhere. I mean to travel for a few years."

      "Will you give me Nep when you go?" pleaded Ethel. "I —— I could not bear to part from Nep."

      Paul was silent so long that the girl looked up, he was in fact quite pale; but he said, quietly, "You shall have Nep, Ethel."

III.

TIME as usual poised on wings flitted so fast away, that two years passed as a dream that is told; but as yet Paul, although coming and going very irregularly, had not departed for Jericho — or America. the meantime his old cordial relations with Ethel seemed at an end; every time he returned from his wanderings he found the inexplicable gulf between them grown deeper and wider. The girl seemed to have put off childish things, and to have borrowed much of Aunt Maria's stately dignity of manner. Of course Paul was pleased with the change; he had always regretted the too impulsive manner of his little Irish friend; for she was distant enough in her attitude towards him to suggest even to his dense mind, that if he would know her now, he must make her acquaintance anew. If he admired dignity in woman, he was certainly presented with enough of it now to satisfy the most exacting soul. And Paul was delighted? Well, it was gratifying to find that Ethel kept her scores of lovers at a respectful distance; that was just as it should be; but to an old friend, one who had known her for years, "She might surely be a little more cordial," thought Paul; and so thought Aunt Maria.

      "Paul is no great favourite with me," said the kindly old lady, "but he has such sterling good qualities one does not class him with other men. You might be a little more genial to him, my love; he belongs to us in a manner."

      "Hardly more than Lord Glenville does," said Ethel hastily, turning crimson at a sudden remembrance of Paul's "we are not really cousins?"

      "Ah! Lord Glenville!" repeated Aunt Maria, seeing the blush with inward rapture, for while she was sure of that young man's feeling for Ethel, she had been as yet undetermined as to Ethel's reciprocation of the same.

      The O'Rooke, it must be known, had sandwiched his hours of struggle to rule his estate with the agreeable pastime of falling in love, and not being the man to do things by halves, had gone in completely, head, heart and soul. Yes! the young man had proved to be of as inflammable material as his father before him, and, as Aunt Maria had prophesied, Ethel was irresistible, incomparable. County gossip knew why the O'Rooke diamonds were to be reset, and it was an open secret that the Castle was being turned upside down, and inside out with wild schemes for making it a lady's bower.

      Ethel enjoyed the O'Rooke's visits; he was so merry and so young at heart, so different from the serious Paul. It flattered her vanity too to find herself always singled out for particular homage; but he made love to her so openly and in such extravagant speeches, that she laughed with and at him, as though he were a foolish boy, instead of a man in deadly earnest —— for the time being. Paul returned from a three months' absence to spend the summer months under the Rector's roof. He had now full opportunity to observe the gay youth that came to call on Aunt Maria, and to count the almost daily visits of the O'Rooke.

      A few weeks later Ethel was sent for to a tribunal consisting of her Uncle and Aunt Louisa, where without preparation Lord Glenville's offer of heart and hand were laid before her.

      "And you will be a countess!"" cried Aunt Louisa, proud of such a contingency. "And the O'Rooke diamonds — and the Castle! Well, if ever a girl was in luck, it's yourself, Ethel O'Hara."

      "And as good-hearted, merry a lad as ever I've met, Irish to the backbone," said the Rector. "Yes! you're a lucky girl. I'll say that much, my Ethel."

      "Yes," said Ethel, stately as Aunt Maria herself. "He is a merry lad; I quite agree with you."

      "And you'd like to be a countess and wear diamonds and a coronet?

      "Of course!" was the scornful reply. "A triple coronet, like the Pope!" and the young girl walked out of the room laughing without another word.

      Aunt Maria in the pony-phaeton was awaiting Ethel at the door, for Lord Glenville had organised a picnic in the woods by the Ford for this July day. Ethel took the reins without a word, and drove silently through the shady lanes which struck the woodlands by the brawling stream rushing from out some rocky fastness far away in the mountains, turning mill-wheels for miles through its descent to the valley. Aunt Maria knew how to respect such a silent humour even in one so close to her heart as the beautiful girl at her side.

      Paul saw the phaeton enter the glade and came forward at once to help Aunt Maria to alight. Then he moved away without a glance at Ethel, who sat still with the reins in her hands and her broad hat thrown back as usual on her shoulders; the fitful sunlight playing in and out the waving tendrils of her wind-tossed hair, glowed richly also upon the fateful beads twisted about her neck. Dignity forgotten, she was eagerly watching Paul, waiting for the moment when he should remember her and come to speak to her.

      "Paul," she breathed rather than said. He heard, half turned, but too late; Lord Glenville was already on the field. Ethel was over-whelmed, carried off by the gay crowd of young people, and Paul was called by a dozen different voices; and left the spot without a glance at her. Aunt Maria still held his arm.

      "So it is all settled," said he, pointedly.

      "I suppose so," was the reply. "The lad is impetuous enough; just his father over again."

      "You compliment him," said Paul, laughing harshly, as he deposited the old lady in a comfortable chair, and went to obey the many demands on his patience.

      The day wore on; the picnic passed off as such affairs are apt to do; everyone tried to believe it was a most cheerful and agreeable occasion, but the old people were very much bored. Meantime that brawling mountain torrent roared sonorously as it broke for the valley, Ethel began to listen to its insistent voice with painful mental tension. What was it trying to tell her that made her heart beat so fast? Over and over again the same warning note, the danger signal to one in deadly peril. She slipped away from her friends and stood alone by the water side watching the swift current with an awful fascination, feeling as though she too were cast upon tumultuous waters bearing her onwards swift to her doom. She could hear the voice of her lover calling to her; how gladly would she run away and hide from him and from everyone. She was so young, so inexperienced, and the current set too strongly for her all in one direction: her uncle, Louisa and Aunt Maria; while Paul —— Paul who could help her with wise counsel —— had not spoken to her to-day, had not even looked at her as he passed her by.

      All this passed swiftly through her mind as she stood alone and tried to read the warning in that undertone of remonstrance of the insistent stream. But she had no time to be thoughtful, for here was the O'Rooke, a bevy of pretty girls in his wake, and Ethel must come and choose the spot for the luncheon baskets to be opened; must laugh and hold her own amongst her friends, and pretend to be so very gay, while her ear heard ever and ever that warning note proclaiming shipwreck to one embarking on that swift current tearing its way to the sea.

      Later when lunch was a joy of the past, and everyone had turned to more sylvan delights, Paul had a moment's breathing-space, and used it, being in a sufficiently morose humour to strike the heart of the woods for a solitary ramble. But what was this? Ethel's voice surely; and what an agonised tone! "Paul! Paul! I want you, Paul!"

      The voice came from a very thicket of brambles, and as Paul thrust his way towards it, he saw the O'Rooke from the other side also struggling through the bushes, while Aunt Maria at a little distance called from time to time, "Come back, my child; let the ferns alone for to-day."

      Lord Glenville was first on the field, and as he stooped to free Ethel from the unfriendly thorns that held her fast by the hair, Paul heard him say:

      "You must let me unclasp the necklace. It is caught in your hair and is the very centre of the tangle."

      Ethel's answer came almost passionately: "Do not touch it!" Aunt Maria also echoed the words, saying significantly:

      "No, my dear Glenville, not you! You must not unclasp that unlucky necklace!"

      "Paul! Paul!" The voice rang like that of the Ethel of years ago, who had thus called when in deadly peril of a fall from a rocky cliff she had insisted upon climbing against his counsel.

      "Don't let him touch it, Paul," she whispered, as he drew near enough for speech, vainly trying to catch his eye as he stooped to release her.

      "But, Ethel, if you hold my hand," said Paul, "how can I get you out of this tangle? Have you a pocket?" he continued, as he held out the necklace whose clasp he had been obliged to break, for Ethel's struggle with the brambles had twisted the frail old clasp. "I thought not. Then I had better carry it for you?"

      "Much better," assented Aunt Maria.

      Ethel was speechless. How the torrent roared. If it would only be silent for one moment perhaps she would have a chance to think; or if the others would go away and leave her alone with Paul; or if Paul would look at her; but no, he had turned away the moment Aunt Maria spoke, and she had not had time to breathe, she could not tell what it was she was struggling to express in words.

      "Paul, give me your arm," said Aunt Maria, answering an appealing glance from the O'Rooke, "and take me back to the carriage. I am tired of brambles. Ethel, remember we must not be late in starting for home."

      "I want to show her the vista I have begun to cut through the plantation," cried Lord Glenville. "You will come, will you not?"

      Ethel's eyes were riveted on Paul, but Paul was already leading Aunt Maria over the rough path through the bushes.

      "Come!" said Glenville.

      They went slowly up the narrow path; silently too for a time.

      "I should be jealous of that fellow Paul," said the O'Rooke, "but he is a kind of cousin, is he not?"

      "We are not in any way related," said Ethel. "Jealous of Paul? He cares nothing for me, nothing at all."

      The O'Rooke laughed. "That is a good joke," he said. Then he laughed again. Yes, even in this moment when the happiness of his future rested on the yea or nay of the maiden at his side, he laughed quite cheerfully. Also the foregoing incident had given him ground for a little assurance; he had long since heard the story of the cornelian necklace.

      But Ethel did not notice the vein of assurance in his manner; she was not present with this merry lad, she was living over again that moment when Paul had come to her aid; feeling the touch of his cold fingers trembling as they disentangled the necklace from the briars. Why had she not taken advantage of this opportunity to implore him to take her away to some quiet place where they could talk together, away from all these kind people whose every word and look seemed to take for granted that her bark was already drifting on that current which was to take her into a whirlpool where the whole happiness of her life would be wrecked.

      "The Castle stands out well now I have cut away the trees," said Lord Glenville.

      Ethel roused herself then and saw that they two stood on the hill-top alone, and that on the other side the stream Castle O'Rooke crowned the precipice, grim and bare now that all the graceful greenery was cut away. This was the spot chosen by its owner for his passionate pleading for Ethel's promise to be his wife. Nor would he take her refusal, given almost as passionately, for earnest, and all the girl could say for the pain gnawing at her heart was: "Take me back to Aunt Maria; now please — at once."

      So back they needs must go, Ethel flying swiftly ahead, the O'Rooke following almost gaily. "Faint heart never won fair lady." He felt the quarry was his; he, the O'Rooke would not have to sue in vain.

      The day had been sultry from the noontide hour, and now and then dark clouds crept up in overpowering gloom. The party had hastily rushed for the carriages, and Paul had his hands full making disposition of the guests.

      "But how are you going home, if I take your seat?" cried a friend as Paul pushed him unceremoniously into the wagonette.

      "Oh, by the short cut across the Ford," said Paul, waving his hand lightly. "I shall be home as soon as the rest of you."

      "By the Ford!" whispered a voice, drowned by a sudden roll of thunder; and a slight figure glided deep into the shadowy woods, ever nearer to the brawling torrent.

      Lord Glenville had lost sight of Ethel from the moment they re-entered the glade, and naturally supposed her safe with her aunt, whereas Paul had sent the old lady home at the first suspicious token in the heavens. He therefore, wroth with fate for throwing a thunderstorm into his love-dream, collected the castle party and drove rapidly away. Paul, of course, believed Ethel to be with her lover, and doggedly completed his arrangements for the safety of the various members of the party. It was with a sigh of relief that he saw the last carriage disappear; he was left alone at last.

      By this time it was almost dark as night in the woods, and the path would have been difficult for any but a wonted foot to tread. The waters too were high at the Ford to-day. Still, Paul had crossed under more unfavourable conditions, he had not a moment's fear of the undertaking. But as he stepped out of the woodlands, he paused. Surely his short-sighted eyes deceived him! Who was this standing on the edge of the torrent with arms outstretched towards him?

      "Ethel!" cried he.

      "Paul, I — I want my necklace!" cried she, white as a wraith, standing between him and the ford.

      He touched his breast pocket. "It's safe where it is," said he. "You've no pocket. How can you carry it?"

      But with lips white as the snow, urged by the voice of the torrent to boldness, Ethel found courage to persist.

      "Give it me. I will have it, Paul."

      "Why?" said he, obstinately. "Be reasonable, Ethel. Even were I superstitious —— it would not be for me to fear water with the necklace in my pocket!"

      He smiled as though in jest at the bare idea, but who was the whiter as he stood gazing into her face —— Ethel or he?

      Neither saw the jagged lightning that tore the sullen clouds in fiery rifts, nor heard the thunder that for the nonce absorbed the voice of the torrent; what were the furious elements to these two standing as it were on the brink of depths immeasurable, with nothing before the drifting crafts but hopeless shipwreck?

      "I quite understood," said Paul, making an effort to speak lightly, "why you would not allow Glenville to touch the beads. It is natural for one brought up in Aunt Maria's atmosphere to accept her little superstitions, and I do not blame you, even though to me it seems a folly. But, since your lover —— I mean," he went on bravely, "the man you love is secure from all baleful influence pertaining to the necklace —— I fail to see what you can want with it."

      "Give it me, Paul! I implore you, give it me," she cried wildly, putting out both her hands.

      He stepped back a little. "Ethel," he said gravely, and yet so kindly, though the words came with such effort it seemed as though he scarce could draw breath to utter them: "Ethel, why are you here? Why are you determined to have the wretched old beads? Why do you dare to look at me like that — and you the promised bride of another man?"

      The roar of the torrent drowned for the moment whatever words the girl might have uttered. Her horror of this swift-flowing current grew to frenzy. She saw the glittering water snake-like writhe and creep above the rocky walls, its prison, and glide about the willows. and girt the beeches standing black in the gloom —— and, was it distraught fancy that the slight hillock on which she stood with Paul was surrounded by the silver coils?

      "I am not like O'Rooke," continued Paul, passionately, a strange tremor in his tone. "I do not laugh through life, love to-day, forget to-morrow; and I have loved you years, Ethel, not days; why else do you suppose I have returned to this out-of-the-world region year by year? But I ought not to speak like this to you. Still —— though this be our last meeting on earth, Ethel, you shall hear me, and you shall tell me why you leave him now and come to me —— with that look in your eyes —— that I —— have —— dreamed —— and never thought to see —— for me ——"

      He paused, too intensely moved for further speech, his white haggard face turned towards her, his eyes commanding the truth from her lips, as though he had invoked the heavens to listen to her words.

      "Oh, Paul, Paul!" cried she, her voice scarcely audible above the roar of the persuasive waters. Paul, Paul!" she held out her hands imploringly. "You stupid, dense, obtuse Paul! Did you not see, could you not see —— I —— I could not bear his hand to touch me? It is you I love. Paul! Paul! "

      Who made that swift movement, swifter than that for which he had once so gravely reproved her? Certainly it was not Ethel.

      Later —— how much later, who knows? Paul suddenly came to his senses, the woodlands had become a lake, the water was creeping up about their feet.

      "The mill-dam must have burst," said he in his every-day practical tone. "It was rotten as paper you know, Ethel, but I've crossed the Ford when it was higher than this in spring and autumn. Are you afraid to try it to-day?"

      "Afraid?" said she, uneasily; "no —— but" —— a look of dread came into her eyes as he pulled the boat across by the line, and stepped down into the swirling waters to hold it for her to enter. She stooped over him, snatched the necklace from his pocket, and threw it far into the stream.

      "It shall not drown you, Paul," she cried! "Oh, Paul, my love!"

      And presently they stood safely on the other side, with love and sunshine in their hearts and all life's happiness before them.