There was nothing more said that night till Edith and Ada were together. Mr. Jones lingered with his daughters, and the Captain took Florian out about the orchard, thinking it well to make him used to whatever danger might come to him from being out of the house. "They will never come where they will be sure to be known," said the Captain; "and known by various witnesses. And they won't come for the chance of a pop shot. I am getting to know their ways as well as though I had lived there all my life. They count on the acquittal of Pat Carroll as a certainty. Whatever I may be, you are tolerably safe as long as that is the case."
"They may shoot me in mistake for you," said the boy.
"Well, yes; that is so. Let us go back to the house. But I don't think there would be any danger to-night anyway." Then they returned, and found Mr. Jones alone in the dining-room. He was very melancholy in these days, as a man must be whom ruin stares in the face.
Edith had followed Ada upstairs to the bedrooms, and had crept after her into that which had been prepared for Captain Clayton. She could see now by the lingering light of an August evening that a tear had fallen from each eye, and had slowly run down her sister's cheeks. "Oh, Ada, dear Ada, what is troubling you?"
"Nothing,—much."
"My girl, my beauty, my darling! Much or little, what is it? Cannot you tell me?"
"He cares nothing for me," said Ada, laying her hand upon the pillow, thus indicating the "he" whom she intended. Edith answered not a word, but pressed her arm tight round her sister's waist. "It is so," said Ada, turning round upon her sister as though to rebuke her. "You know that it is so."
"My beauty, my own one," said Edith, kissing her.
"You know it is so. He has told you. It is not me that he loves; it is you. You are his chosen one. I am nothing to him,—nothing, nothing." Then she flung herself down upon the bed which her own hands had prepared for him.
It was all true. As the assertions had come from her one by one, Edith had found herself unable to deny a tittle of what was said. "Ada, if you knew my heart to you."