“I would leave to-morrow if it were not for the tete-a-tetes that I have with one whom I meet too seldom.”
“That is exasperating, Mr. Barclugh. Who can it be? Is it Mrs. Arnold?” sallied Mollie.
“Oh! no! no! She is too imperious. Can you not guess?” and Barclugh looked so appealingly into Mollie’s eyes that her pulse seemed to cease.
She grew pale and could scarcely venture a reply.
“I would not dare to guess,” she said softly, “for fear that I might be mistaken.”
The Secretary of Congress, Charles Thompson, came up to Mollie at this juncture to bid her good-bye and she was drawn into the duties of bidding the guests farewell; Roderick Barclugh left Dorminghurst that afternoon, determined to win the heart of Mollie Greydon; but little did he know what stirring events would intervene before he could offer himself to the one he loved.
CHAPTER IV
“That game, Charles, last night, upset our plans, and we must recoup our fortunes from government,” suggested young Lord Carlisle bitterly, on the morning after he had lost ten thousand pounds sterling at a single cast at hazard in Brooks’ Club.