Colonel Carlyle soon misses his heart's fair queen from the ball-room, and immediately the whole enchanting scene becomes a desert in his love-lorn eyes. He glances hither and thither; he wanders disconsolately around, yet no flitting glimpse of his snow-maiden rewards his eager eyes. She has vanished as completely from his sight as if a sunbeam had shone down upon and dissolved her into a mist.

"Have you seen Bonnibel anywhere?" he inquires of Felise, meeting her on her partner's arm as he wandered around.

Felise looks up with a low, malicious laugh.

"Bonnibel?" she says. "Oh, yes; she and Byron Penn have been down on the beach this half hour in the moonlight, composing sonnets."

Her partner laughs and hurries her on, leaving the anxious old husband standing in the floor like one dazed. A dozen people standing around have heard the question and its answer. They nod and wink at each other, for Colonel Carlyle's patent jealousy has begun to make him a laughing stock. After a moment he recollects himself and turns away. People wonder if he will go out and confront the sentimental pair, and a few couples, on curiosity bent, stroll out to watch his proceedings.[Pg 72] They are rewarded directly, for he comes out and takes his way down the shore.

Felise's assertion of a half an hour is merely a pleasant fiction. It has not been ten minutes since she left the house on the arm of the young poet. They are standing on the beach looking out at the glorious sea, and the young man whose soul is so deeply imbued with poetry that he can think and speak of nothing else, has been telling her what a sweet poem is "Lucille," Owen Meredith's latest. He repeats a few lines, and the girl inclines her head and tries to be attentive.
"O, being of beauty and bliss! seen and known In the depths of my heart, and possessed there alone, My days know thee not, and my lips name thee never, Thy place in my poor life is vacant forever, We have met, we have parted, no more is recorded In my annals on earth."

The pretty lines have a more attentive listener than Bonnibel. Her husband has come up softly and unnoticed. He sees the graceful head graciously inclined, hears the lines that Byron Penn has, unconsciously to himself, made the vehicle for expressing his own sentiments, and his heart quakes with fury. He strides before them, white and stern.

"Mrs. Carlyle," he says, in low, stern accents, "will you come with me?"

The young wife lifts her drooping head with a start and sees him standing before her, wan, white and haggard, quite a different man from the enraptured lover who had kissed and praised her but a little while ago.

"I—oh, dear me—has anything happened, Colonel Carlyle? Are you ill?" she falters, in her innocent unconsciousness.

"Will you come with me?" he repeats, grinding his teeth in a fury.

"Certainly," she says, thinking that something dreadful must have happened surely, and simply saying, "You will excuse me, Mr. Penn," she bows and turns away on her husband's arm.

The handsome young fellow looks after them blankly.

"Upon my word," he exclaims, "what a furious, uncalled-for outbreak of jealousy! So that's what it is to be an old man's darling, is it? Truly an enviable position for such a peerless angel."

He throws himself down on the beach, to the detriment of his immaculate evening costume, and resigns himself to some rather melancholy musings.

Meanwhile Bonnibel, as she walks away, again asks, with sweet unconsciousness:

"Has anything happened, Colonel Carlyle?"

"Let us go to your private parlor; I will tell you there," he answers, coldly.

Inside that safe retreat they confront each other in momentary silence, Bonnibel anxious, troubled, and totally unconscious, Colonel Carlyle pale with anger and wild, unreasoning jealousy, his brain on fire with contending passions that have been seething there ever since Felise's consummate art had been employed to torture him this evening.

[Pg 73]

"Now you will tell me?" she inquires, standing before him with loosely-clasped hands, the fleecy drapery falling from her shoulders, the fairest vision his eyes ever rested upon.

"Bonnibel, you surely do not pretend to be ignorant that you have given me cause for offense?" he exclaims, hoarsely.

Her blue eyes dilate; she retreats a step with genuine surprise depicted on her face. Then she remembered her promise about waltzing.

"Surely, there is some misunderstanding," she answers, slowly. "I assure you, sir, that I have not waltzed any more since you asked me not to do so."

"You have done worse, much worse!" he exclaims, passionately, "and your affectation of innocence must certainly be feigned. No woman in her senses could be oblivious to the fact that your open flirtation with that silly rhymester, Byron Penn, is simply scandalous."

In his excitement he characterizes her offense in terms more forcible than true. She is dumb with astonishment for a moment, then she walks straight up to hi............