"No, he never came back from the city after he had once gone in, until evening."
"But are you sure that this day he did not return to Marvin?" he persisted. "How do you know?"
"Because no one saw him," I returned, "and he could hardly have come back without someone in the house seeing him."
He said no more, as Lillian and Katherine came up just then, and the conversation became general.
To my great surprise, I did not see him again after that first visit. Katherine explained to me that he had been called out of town on urgent business, but the explanation seemed to me to savor of the mysterious excitement that seemed to possess everybody around me.
Finally one morning, Lillian came to me, her face shining.
"I want you to prepare to be very brave, Madge," she said. "There is some one coming whom I fear it will tax all your strength to meet."
"Dicky!" I faltered, beginning to tremble.
"No, child, not yet," she said, her voice filled with pity, "but someone who has done you a great wrong, Grace Draper."