They had passed through a gate, crossed a lawn, and reached a long, steep flight of steps leading straight up the face of a cliff, to the grounds attached to a villa.  With her hand clasped tightly in his, Mr. Dunbar and Beryl slowly mounted the abrupt stairway, and when they gained the elevated terrace, a man who was walking up and down the sward, came quickly forward.

Pressing her fingers tenderly, Mr. Dunbar released her hand.

“When your interview is ended, come to me yonder at the side gate, where I have a carriage to take you over the bridge.  Father Beckx, this is Miss Brentano.  I leave her in your care.”

The sun was sending his last level shafts of light from the edge of the sky, when a man dressed in long black vestments, a raven-haired, raven-eyed, thin lipped and clean shaven personage, with a placid countenance as coldly irresponsive as a stone mask, sat down on the top step of the long stairs, beside the woman in gray, whose eager white face was turned to meet his, in breathless and mute expectancy.

The lingering twilight held at bay slowly marching night; the sunset glory streamed up almost to the zenith in bands of amethyst and faint opaline green, like the far reaching plumes of an archangel’s pinions beating the still, crystal air.  Later, the vivid orange of the afterglow burned with a transient splendor, as the dying smile of a day that had gone to its eternal grave; and all the West was one vast evening primrose of palest gold sprinkled with star dust, when Beryl went slowly to join the figure pacing restlessly in front of the gate.

Across the grassy lawn he came to meet her.  In mute surrender she lifted her arms, laid her proud head, with its bared wealth of burnished bronze hair, down on his shoulder, and wept passionately.

When he had placed her in the carriage, and held her close to his heart, with his dark cheek resting on hers, where tears still trickled, he whispered: 

“How much are you willing to tell me?”

“Only that I must start at once on a long, lonely journey to a desolate retreat, in mountain solitudes; far away in the wilderness of the Northwest.  Bertie is there; and I must see him once more.”

“How soon do you wish to start?”

“Within the next three days.”

“You must wait one week.  I cannot go before that time.”

“You—?”

“Do you suppose I shall allow you to travel there without me?  Do you imagine I shall ever lose sight of you, till the vows are uttered that make you my wife?  You cannot see your brother’s face, until you have first looked into your husband’s.  In one week I can arrange to go, to the ends of the earth if you will; but you will meet your brother only when you are Beryl Dunbar.”

“No—­no!  You forget, ah!—­You forget.  I have worn the penitentiary homespun, and the brand of the convict seared my fair name, scarred all my life.  The wounds will heal, but time can never efface the hard lines of the cicatrice; and I could not bear to mar the lustre of your honored name by—­”