Buntingford shook his head. He turned to Lucy.

"You and I will let the young ones go--won't we? I don't see you climbing Moel Dun in the rain, and I'm getting too old! We'll walk up the road a bit, and look at the people as they go by. I daresay we shall see as much as the other two."

So the other two climbed, alone and almost in silence. Beside them and in front of them, scattered up and along the twilight fell, were dim groups of pilgrims bent on the same errand with themselves. It was not much past nine o'clock, and the evening would have been still light but for the drizzle of rain and the low-hanging clouds. As it was, those bound for the beacon-head had a blind climb up the rocks and the grassy slopes that led to the top. Helena stumbled once or twice, and Geoffrey caught her.

Thenceforward he scarcely let her go again. She protested at first, mountaineer that she was; but he took no heed, and presently the warmth of his strong clasp seemed to hypnotize her. She was silent, and let him pull her up.

On the top was a motley crowd of farmers, labourers and visitors, with a Welsh choir from a neighbouring village, singing hymns and patriotic songs. The bonfire was to be fired on the stroke of ten, by a neighbouring landowner, whose white head and beard flashed hither and thither through the crowd and the mist, as he gave his orders, and greeted the old men, farmers and labourers, he had known for a lifetime.

The sweet Welsh voices rose in the "Men of Harlech," "Land of My Fathers," or in the magnificent "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord." And when the moment arrived, and the white-haired Squire, with his three chosen men, fired the four corners of the high-built pile, out rushed the blaze, flaring up to heaven, defying the rain, and throwing its crimson glow on the faces ringed round it. "God Save the King!" challenged the dark, and then, hand in hand, the crowd marched round about the pyramid of fire in measured rhythm, while "Auld Lang Syne," sorrowfully sweet, echoed above the haunted mountain-top where in the infancy of Britain, Celt and Roman in succession had built their camps and reared their watch-towers. And presently from all quarters of the great horizon sprang the answering flames from mountain peaks that were themselves invisible in the murky night, while they sent forward yet, without fail or break, the great torch-race of victory, leaping on, invincible by rain or dark, far into the clouded north.

But Geoffrey's eyes could not tear themselves from Helena. He saw her bathed in light, from top to toe, now gold, now scarlet, a fire-goddess, inimitably beautiful. They danced hand in hand, intoxicated by the music, and by the movement of their young swaying bodies. He felt Helena unconsciously leaning on him, her soft breath on his cheek. Her eyes were his now, and her smiling lips, just parted over her white teeth, tempted him beyond his powers of resistance.

"Come!" he whispered to her, and with a quick turn of the hand he had swung her out of the fiery circle, and drawn her towards the surrounding dark. A few steps and they were on the mountainside again, while behind them the top was still aflame, and black forms still danced round the drooping fire.

But they were safely curtained by night and the rising storm. After the first stage of the descent, suddenly he flung his arms round her, his mouth found hers, and all Helena's youth rushed at last to meet him as he gathered her to his breast.

"Geoffrey--my Tyrant!--let me go!" she panted.

"Are you mine--are you mine, at last?--you wild thing!"

"I suppose so--" she said, demurely. "Only, let me breathe!"

She escaped, and he heard her say with low sweet laughter as though to herself:

"I seem at any rate to be following my guardian's advice!"

"What advice? Tell me! you darling, tell me everything. I have a right now to all your secrets."

"Some day--perhaps."

Darkness hid her eyes. Hand in hand they went down the hillside, while the Mount of Victory still blazed behind them.

Philip and Lucy were waiting for them. And then, at last, Helena remembered her telegram of the afternoon, and read it to a group of laughing hearers.

"Right you are. I proposed last night to Jennie Dumbarton. Wedding, October--Await reply. PETER."

"He shall have his reply," said Helena. And she wrote it with Geoffrey looking on.

Not quite twenty-four hours later, Buntingford was walking up through the late twilight to Beechmark. After the glad excitement kindled in him by Helena's and Geoffrey's happiness, his spirits had dropped steadily all the way home. There before him across the park, rose his large barrack of a house, so empty, but for that frail life which seemed now part of his own.

He walked on, his eyes fixed on the lights in the rooms where his boy was. When he reached the gate into the gardens, a figure came suddenly out of the shrubbery towards him.

"Cynthia!"

"Philip! We didn't expect you till to-morrow."

He turned back with her, inexpressibly comforted by her companionship.

The first item in his news was of course the news of Helena's engagement.

Cynthia's surprise was great, as she showed; so also was her relief, which she did not show.

"And the wedding is to be soon?"

"Geoffrey pleads for the first week in September, that they may have time to get to some favourite places of his in France before Parliament meets.

Helena and Mrs. Friend will be here to-morrow."

After a pause he turned to her, with another note in his voice:

"You have been with Arthur?"

She gave an account of her day.

"He misses you so. I wanted to make up to him a little."

"He loves you--so do I!" said Buntingford. "Won't you come and take charge of us both, dear Cynthia? I owe you so much already--I would do my best to pay it."

He took her hand and pressed it. All was said.

Yet through all her gladness, Cynthia felt the truth of Georgina's remark--"When he marries it will be for peace--not passion." Well, she must accept it. The first-fruits were not for her. With all his chivalry he would never be able to give her what she had it in her to give him.

It was the touch of acid in the sweetness of her lot. But sweet it was all the same.

When she told Georgina, her sister broke into a little laugh--admiring, not at all unkind.

"Cynthia, you are a clever woman! But I must point out that Providence has given you every chance."

Peace indeed was the note of Philip's mood that night, as he paced up and down beside the lake after his solitary dinner. He was, momentarily at least, at rest, and full of patient hope. His youth was over. He resigned it, with a smile and a sigh; while seeming still to catch the echoes of it far away, like music in some invisible city that a traveller leaves behind him in the night. His course lay clear before him. Politics would give him occupation, and through political life power might come to him.

But the real task to which he set his most human heart, in this moment of change and reconstruction, was to make a woman and a child happy.