There was something in her face he did not quite comprehend. She made as though to speak, looked at him, hesitated, her lovely face eloquent under the impulse. Then, leaning toward him, she said: "'And thy ways shall be my ways.'"

"Sylvia, you must not deny yourself, just because I--"

"Let me. It is the happiest thing I have ever done for myself."

"But I don't wish it."

"Ah, but I do," she said, the low excited laughter scarcely fluttering her lips. "Listen: I never before, in all my life, gave up anything for your sake, only this one little pitiful thing."

"I won't let you!" he breathed; "it is nonsense to--"

"You must let me! Am I to be on friendly terms with--with your mortal enemy?" She was still smiling, but now her sensitive mouth quivered suddenly.

He sat silent, considering her, his restless fingers playing with his glass in which the harmless bubbles were breaking.

"I drink to your health, Stephen," she said under her breath. "I drink to your happiness, too; and--and to your fortune, and to all that you desire from fortune." And she raised her glass in the star-light, looking over it into his eyes.

"All I desire from fortune?" he repeated significantly.

"All--almost all--"

"No, all," he demanded.

But she only raised the glass to her lips, still looking at him as she drank.

They became unreasonably gay almost immediately, though the beverage scarcely accounted for the delicate intoxication that seemed to creep into their veins. Yet it was sufficient for Siward to say an amusing thing wittily, for Sylvia to return his lead with all the delightful, unconscious brilliancy that he seemed to inspire in her--as though awaking into real life once more. All that had slumbered in her through the winter and spring, and the long, arid summer now crumbling to the edge of autumn, broke out into a delicate riot of exquisite florescence; the very sounds of her voice, every intonation, every accent, every pause, were charming surprises; her laughter was a miracle, her beauty a revelation.

Leila, aware of it, exchanged glance after glance with Plank. Siward, alternately the leader in it all, then the enchanted listener, bewitched, enthralled, felt care slipping from his shoulders like a mantle, and sadness exhaling from a heart that was beating strongly, steadily, fearlessly--as a heart should beat in the breast of him who has taken at last his fighting chance. He took it now, under her eyes, for honour, for manhood, and for the ideal which had made manhood no longer an empty term muttered in desperation by a sick body, and a mind too sick to control it.




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