"You will inform the ladies that I shall return to-night. It proved a chilly day for sketching, and finding myself nearer my own home than the mansion-house, I stole a few moments for poor, old, lonesome mammy here."
Harrington had arisen as she commenced speaking, and with a grave bend of the head, promised to convey her message.
The two women watched him as he crossed the rude garden, and mounted his horse; then drawing hurriedly back into the house, they closed the door.
"What could have brought him here? Did she send him?" inquired the slave-woman anxiously, and all at once assuming the haughty air natural to her, while a keen intelligence came to her features.
"No," answered Agnes, "she is ill in bed; I am sure she has not seen him this morning. It must have been accident that brought him in this direction."
The slave-woman looked searchingly in the girl's face.
"Did he know that you came this way?"
"That is impossible."
"It should not be impossible. You have been months in his house, Agnes—I did not expect so little progress."
Agnes was annoyed, and put aside the subject with an impatient gesture.