He had immediately determined that Elna should be separated from him until the time of the proposed marriage had approached. While she was to be sent to New England to prosecute her studies under the charge of an artist friend, he himself proposed to spend the greater part of the year in the northern mountains, hunting, fishing and exploring.
But before this prudent and proper step could be taken, a week or so of preparation became necessary. It was only a week since the woman had risen from her bed, a showery Niobe, as we have seen, when Manton entered the house one morning at an hour when he was not expected, he met the woman gliding hastily through a passage, with one of the sleeves of her dress gone. The meaning of this sign at once flashed across him, for he remembered to have seen that fair and beautiful arm, by skilful accident, exposed to his own gaze during her first attempts at diverting and exciting his passions, and he shrewdly conceived that there must be some new victim on hand, even already.
“Ha!” said he maliciously, as she was hurrying past. “Why, what’s become of your sleeve this morning?”
The woman flushed very red, and her eye turned obliquely upon him as she muttered confusedly—
“I—I’ve lost it!”
“Ah, well, come! Let us look for it! Let us find it! The morning is too cold! I will help you! I fear you will suffer!”
“No, no, never mind! I will find it myself!”
“But I insist! We must find it at once, before you take cold! Come, we will look in the parlor!” And he made a movement of his outstretched hand as if to open the door.
She clutched him nervously, saying in a low whisper—
“Don’t go in there, I have a visitor!”