All the lamps have been extinguished, leaving the apartment, which is immense, steeped in darkness. Coming into it from the brilliantly-lighted hall outside, with only a candle in her hand, the gloom seems even greater, and overcomes her sight to such a degree that she has traversed at least one-half its length before she discovers she is not its only occupant.
Seated before a writing-table, with his hand, indeed, upon the very blotting-book she seeks, and with only another candle similar to hers to lend him light, sits Luttrell.
As her eyes meet his she starts, colors violently, and is for the moment utterly abashed.
Involuntarily she glances down at the soft blue dressing-gown she wears, over which her hair—brushed and arranged for the night—falls in soft, rippling, gold-brown masses, and from thence to the little naked feet that peep out shamelessly from their blue slippers.
The crimson blood rises to her face. Covered with a painful though pretty confusion, she stands quite still, and lets her tell-tale eyes seek the ground.
Luttrell has risen, and, without any particular design, has advanced toward her. Perhaps the force of habit compels him to do so; perhaps intense and not altogether welcome surprise. For the future to see her is but to add one more pang to his intolerable regret.
"I was writing to you," he says, indicating with a slight movement of the hand the chair on which he has been sitting, and thus breaking the awful silence which threatens to last until next day, so mute has Molly grown. With a delicate sense of chivalry he endeavors to appear oblivious of her rather scanty and disconcerting—however becoming—costume. "But as it is, perhaps I may as well say to you what is on my mind,—if you will permit me."
"I cannot forbid your speech." Coldly.
"I will not keep you long. But"—with a slight, almost imperceptible, glance at her dressing-gown—"perhaps you are in a hurry?"
"I am—rather." At this juncture, had they been friends, Molly would undoubtedly have laughed. As it is, she is profoundly serious. "Still, if it is anything important, I will hear you."