The party from the Lake had not arrived at an early hour, and it was quite late when Mr. Raleigh made his way through ranks of tireless dancers, toward Marguerite.  She had been dancing with a spirit that would have resembled joyousness but for its reckless abandon.  She seemed to him then like a flame, as full of wilful sinuous caprice.  At the first he scarcely liked it, but directly the artistic side of his nature recognized the extreme grace and beauty that flowed through every curve of movement.  Standing now, the corn-silk hair slightly disordered and still blown about by the fan of some one near her, her eyes sparkling like stars in the dewdrops of wild wood-violets, warm, yet weary, and a flush deepening her cheek with color, while the flowers hung dead around her, she held a glass of wine and watched the bead swim to the brim.  Mr. Raleigh approached unaware, and startled her as he spoke.

“It is au gre du vent, indeed,” he said,—­“just the white fluttering butterfly,—­and now that the wings are clasped above this crimson blossom, I have a chance of capture.”  And smiling, he gently withdrew the splendid draught.

“Buvez, Monsieur,” she said; “c’est le vin de la vie!”

“Do you know how near daylight it is?” he replied.  “Mrs. Laudersdale fainted in the heat, and your father took her home long ago.  The Heaths went also; and the carriage has just returned for the only ones of us that are left, you and me.”

“Is it ready now?”

“Yes.”

“So am I.”

And in a few moments she sat opposite him in the coach, on their way home.

“It wouldn’t be possible for me to sit on the box and drive?” she asked.

“I should like it, in this wild starlight, these flying clouds, this breath of dawn.”

Meeting no response, she sank into silence.  No emotion can keep one awake forever, and, after all her late fatigue, the roll of the easy vehicle upon the springs soon soothed her into a dreamy state.  Through the efforts at wakefulness, she watched the gleams that fell within from the carriage-lamps, the strange shadows on the roadside, the boughs tossing to the wind and flickering all their leaves in the speeding light; she watched, also, Mr. Raleigh’s face, on which, in the fitful flashes, she detected a look of utter weariness.

“Monsieur,” she exclaimed, “il faut que je vous gene!”

“Immensely,” said Mr. Raleigh with a smile; “but, fortunately, for no great time.”

“We shall be soon at home?  Then I must have slept.”

“Very like.  What did you dream?”

“Oh, one must not tell dreams before breakfast, or they come to pass, you know.”

“No,—­I am uninitiated in dream-craft.  Mr. Heath”——­

“Monsieur,” she cried, with sudden heat, “il me semble que je comprends les Laocoons!  J’en suis de meme!”

As she spoke, she fell, struck forward by a sudden shock, the coach was rocking like a boat, and plunging down unknown gulfs.  Mr. Raleigh seized her, broke through the door, and sprang out.