Little by little the story came out, and the two young lovers, clasped so fondly in each other’s arms, did not feel the intense cold or hear the wild moaning of the winds around them.  Through her tears Faynie told her handsome, strong young lover just what had happened.  Her father had sent for her to come to his library that morning, and when she had complied with the summons, he had informed her that a friend of his had asked for her hand in marriage, and he had consented, literally settling the matter without consulting her, the one most vitally interested.  She had most furiously rebelled, there had been a terrible scene, and it had ended by her father harshly bidding her to prepare for the wedding, which would take place on the morrow, adding that a father was supposed to know best what to do for his daughter’s interests; that the fiat had gone forth; that she would marry the husband he had selected for her on the morrow, though all the angels above or the demons below attempted to frustrate it.

“You will save me, Lester?” cried the girl, wildly clinging to him with death-cold hands.  “Oh, Lester, my love, tell me, what am I to do?  He is very old, quite forty, and I am only eighteen.  I abhor him quite as much as I love you, Lester.  Tell me, dear, what am I to do?”

He gathered her close in his arms in an agony that words are too weak to portray.

“You shall not, you must not, marry the man your father has selected for you, my darling.  You are mine, Faynie, and you must marry me,” he cried, hoarsely.  “Heaven intended us for each other, and for no one else.  You shall be mine past the power of any one human to part us ere the morrow’s light dawns, if—­if you wish it so.”

She clung to him, weeping hysterically, answering: 

“Oh, yes, Lester, let it be so.  I will marry you, and you will take me away from this place, where no one, save Claire—­not even my father—­loves me.”

He strained her to his throbbing heart with broken words, but at that instant the shriek of an approaching train sounded upon his ears.  He tore himself away from her encircling embrace.

“To do all that I have to do, I must return to the city, quickly arrange for the marriage and a suitable place to take my bride.  I will return by ten o’clock.  Be at this gate, my darling, with whatever change of clothing you wish to take with you.  I will bring a carriage.  The way by carriage road from the city is less than seven miles, you know.  We will drive to the minister’s in the village below.  A few words and I shall have the right to protect you through life, and oh! my darling, my idol, my trusting little love, may God deal by me as I deal with you!”

Those were the last words Faynie heard, for in the next instant her lover had torn himself free from her clinging arms and was dashing like one mad through the drifts toward the railroad station again.  Then, with a strange, unaccountable presentiment of coming evil, Faynie Fairfax turned and stole up the serpentine path into the house again.