Ralph scarcely heeded her; a wild desire to see Lina, and convince himself of her falsehood, drove all other thoughts from his mind; but the words and voice which bespoke so much tender sorrow, were remembered afterward.
"Come, let us begone at once," he said, folding his paletot closely, and drawing her arm through his. "I thank Heaven this suspense will be ended to-morrow. I shall be a man again."
Agnes leaned heavily on his arm; the deep snow made walking difficult, and this was her excuse. Ralph only noticed it to lend her assistance; his thoughts ran wildly toward Lina French, the gentle, kind-hearted girl who had been so long a portion of his own life, and whose unworthiness he could not yet wholly realize.
A two-horse sleigh, crowded with buffalo robes, evidently the equipage of some wealthy establishment, stood on the highway where it swept down to General Harrington's mansion. Ralph helped his companion in, and they dashed off noiselessly as lightning, and almost as swift.
No word was spoken between the two during the ride. Agnes shivered now and then, as if with cold, and this aroused Ralph for an instant from the painful reverie into which he had fallen; but he only drew the fur robes more closely about her, and sunk into perfect unconsciousness of her presence once more. Thus, in profound silence they reached the city, and dashing onward, they drew up before the house to which Lina had been conveyed only a few weeks before.
"This is the house," said Agnes, pushing the fur robes from around her; and, without waiting for help, she sprang out, and mounted the steps just as the door was opened by some one from within. A single word passed between her and the servant, just as Ralph reached her side; but he only heard her inquiring in the ordinary way for the young lady who had just taken up her residence there.
The door was flung wide open, as if she had been expected, and the servant led the way into what, in the dim light, seemed a small drawing-room. The bland, warm atmosphere that filled this room would have been most welcome, under other circumstances, after the severe cold of the night; but now Ralph was hardly conscious either of the warmth, or an atmosphere of blooming plants which floated luxuriously around him. Rich jets of gas burned like fairy beads in the lower end of the room, dimly revealing the small conservatory from which this fragrance came, and affording a glimpse here and there of rich silk hangings and pictures upon the wall, whose gorgeousness forced itself upon the observation even in that dim twilight.
Ralph looked around with surprise; the place was so unlike anything he had expected to find, that for the moment he lost sight of the object of his coming. All at once he became conscious of a third presence—a soft flutter of garments, and the movement of some person advancing towards that portion of the room in which those tiny stars seemed burning. Directly a glow of light burst over the whole apartment. The stars had broken into brilliant jets of flame, and a tent of blossoms rose before him, like some fairy nook flooded with radiance.
Half-way between this background of plants and the place he occupied, stood a female, so gorgeously attired and so singular in her whole appearance, that the young man uttered an exclamation of surprise, which was answered by an angry start and an abrupt movement of the woman, who was evidently both astonished and displeased by his presence there.
"What is this?" she said, haughtily; "I gave no orders for the admission of strangers here."