"I am mad," said Bertram to himself. "Mad, as ever was the proverbial March hare. That girl who passed us in the darkness was Josephine Hart. Yes, that girl was Nina, and I must, I will, see her again."  
His heart was beating tumultuously; he felt the great passion of his love tingling through all his veins. Money was nothing to him in this hour, debts were forgotten, disgrace and dishonor were nowhere. Nina and love were all in all. He would see her, he would kiss her, he would hold her in his arms, he would, he must. The very elements helped him as he ran back to the place where he knew she had paused to watch him. Why had she come back! She knew her power only too well. Why had she come to exercise it? It was mad of her, wicked of her, it meant his ruin, and yet he was glad, yet he rejoiced.
 
The moments seemed endless until he could reach her. Beatrice was as absolutely forgotten by him at this moment as if she had never existed.
 
At last he gained the spot where Josephine had brushed past him in the darkness. He knew it, he knew the sudden curve of the road, the bend in the path where it began to dip downwards. He stood still, and strained his eyes to look through the darkness. No one was there. Beatrice had seen the slender figure leaning against the hedge, but all now was emptiness and solitude. Not a soul was in sight. On this lonely road not a being but himself breathed.
 
He stood motionless, he listened hard. Once even he called aloud:
 
"I am here, Nina! Here, Nina! waiting for you here!"
 
But no one responded. He was alone; the vision, the delicious, heart-stirring vision, had vanished.
 
Captain Bertram wandered about, restless and miserable, for an hour or two. Then he went home and retired straight to his room.
 
That night he did not attempt to keep the secret chamber of his heart in which Josephine dwelt, locked and barred. No, he opened the doors wide, and bade her come out, and talked to her. Passionate and wild and loving words he used, and Beatrice was nothing to him. He did not go to bed that night. In the morning his face showed symptoms of the vigil he had passed through. His mother noticed the haggard lines round his eyes, and she gave vent to a sigh—scarcely audible, it is true, and quickly smothered.
 
Mrs. Bertram was happy, but still she lived on thorns. She felt that the fairy palace she had built over that sepulchre of the past might crumble at any moment. The lines of care on Bertram's brow gave her a sensation of fear. Was anything the matter? Was the courage of the bride-elect failing? At the eleventh hour could anything possibly injure the arrangements so nearly completed?
 
Catherine and Mabel were in good spirits. Their bride's-maids' dresses had arrived from town the previous night. They were of gauzy white over silk slips; the girls had never possessed such luxurious costumes before.
 
"You'd like to see us in them, wouldn't you, Loftie?" said Mabel. "Catherine looks splendid in her............