“Nor I,” Aurelia contentedly replied. She looked at Leilah. “By-by.”
“Good-by,” Violet added.
In a moment both had gone and Leilah, again alone, reopened the little treatise on the Paramitas.
The way was now clear and to that way the pamphlet had pointed. It had done more. It had brought the exaltation which such beatitudes do bring to those in great distress. But though it had exalted, suddenly the fervour fell from her, for at once she foresaw the scene which she would have with Verplank, when now, at the last moment, she had to tell him that she could not go. The terror of it daunted her. She could see him, demanding that she tell him why—that faltering why of hers which would be gibberish to him and yet which summarised her ideals.
For the moment she felt that she lacked the strength for this, that it would be better to write him and she was thinking what she would say and how she would say it, when something external, a noise from without, distracted her.
She stood up and went to the window, from which, since the day of the ambuscade, she had had no heart to look.
Below, a footman in a canary coat and black knee-breeches was walking, bareheaded, straight on. At the gate he stopped, fumbled with the latch, drew back the door, held it open.
A man entered. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a rigid face, calm eyes, the air of a judge. His beard, intensely black, the beard of a Saracen, was close cut and pointed. He was dressed in black.
Another man followed. Shorter, fairer, distinctly fat, he had a box under his arm. About the box were broad bands, sealed with red wax.
A third man appeared. Older than the others, he had gray hair, glasses rimmed with tortoise-shell, and a bag.