“That man, Mr. Ross, I mean, once forced himself into our garden, trampled down the beds, and insisted on finding madam in one of the green-houses, where he did find her, and there they talked together in a strange way. I did not hear what they said, being in another part of the garden, and old Storms there, so that I could not get closer; but his voice was loud and clear, and hers—— Well, I can’t tell you what hers was like, only there was something that went to my heart in it—tears buried out of sight since she was a girl. I should say——”
“Well, Ellen, you have surprised me. Who would have thought it of her—so proud, so grandly self-possessed? I never dreamed that she could give way.”
“Give way! Why, that man left her on the conservatory floor in a dead swoon,” said Ellen Post, bringing her story to a climax with thrilling dexterity.
Miss Spicer sunk down on the carpet, by the billowy waves of silk that Ellen had dropped there, holding up her hands in astonishment.
“Mrs. Lambert in a swoon, a down right fainting fit! I can’t believe it. Indeed, indeed, I can’t.”
“You may, for I helped to bring her out, and a dreadful time we had of it. All that night long she lay like a dead woman, and never spoke a word, except one, and that was a name.”
“What name, Ellen?”
“Herman. I never heard it before, and I don’t know who it belongs to in the least,” answered the lady’s maid.
“Herman; that is his name—Herman Ross.”
“Then, one thing is sure!”