"You deserve it then. Surely you might have chosen a more fitting time for a carouse!"
It seemed to her, curiously enough, that he gave a little shiver and drew in his lips beneath his dark moustache. But he answered with his usual indifference of manner.
"It was hardly a carouse. I can't undertake to make a recluse of myself, my dear aunt, in spite of the family troubles."
"Hubert, don't be so heartless!" cried Miss Vane imperiously; then, checking herself, she pressed her thin lips slightly together and sat silent, with her eyes fixed on the cups before her.
"Am I heartless? Well, I suppose I am," said the young man, with a slight mocking smile in which his eyes seemed to take no part. "I am sorry, but really I can't help it. In the meantime perhaps you will give me a cup of coffee—for I am famishing after my early flight from town—and tell me why you telegraphed for me in such a hurry last night."
Miss Vane filled his cup with a hand that trembled still. Hubert Lepel watched her movements with interest. He did not often see his kinswoman display so much agitation. She was not his aunt by any tie of blood—she was a faraway cousin only; but ever since his babyhood he had addressed her by that title.
"I sent for you," she said at last, speaking jerkily and hurriedly, as if the effort were almost more than she could bear—"I sent for you to tell the General what you yourself telegraphed to me last night."
A flush of dull red color stole into the young man's face. He looked at her intently, with a contracted brow.
"Do you mean," he said, after a moment's pause, "that you have not told him yet?"
Miss Vane averted her eyes.