"Turning all ways?" he suggested, indolently humorous. "Not driving us
forth out of the garden of Eden, I hope? That would be a little hard on
two such inoffensive mortals as we are, eh, sweetheart?"

"I don't know," she said seriously. "I doubt if the plea of
inoffensiveness would open the gates of Heaven to any one."

He laughed. "I can't talk ethics at this time of night, Star of my
heart. It's time we went to our lair. I believe you would sit here till
sunrise if I would let you, you most ethereal of women. Do you ever
think of your body at all, I wonder?"

He kissed her neck with the careless words, and a quick shiver went
through her. She made a slight, scarcely perceptible movement to free
herself.

But the next moment sharply, almost convulsively, she grasped his arm.
"Ralph! What is that?"

She was gazing towards the shadow cast by a patch of flowering azalea in
the moonlight about ten yards from where they sat. Dacre raised himself
with leisurely self-assurance and peered in the same direction. It was
not his nature to be easily disturbed.

But Stella's hand still clung to his arm, and there was agitation in her
hold. "What is it?" she whispered. "What can it be? I have seen it
move--twice. Ah, look! Is it--is it--a panther?"

"Good gracious, child, no!" Carelessly he made response, and with the
words disengaged himself from her hand and stood up. "It's more probably