"Has she no suspicions of my proximity?" he demanded.
"None," returned the woman; "as I live she has none."
"Then I would look on her a moment to-night."
"That you can easily do," said she. "I left her sitting in a cushioned seat, drawn close before an open casement, with the full moon shining on her face."
"A lucky position! I will show myself to her in a few minutes," he remarked, as the twain parted. Hannah Doliver proceeded rapidly up the garden avenue to the mansion, and hurried to the apartment of her mistress.
The invalid lady was sitting in the same position in which she had left her an hour before.
"You have been absent a long time, Hannah," she observed in a languid tone.
"I went as far as Col. Malcome's to learn if they had any recent intelligence of Florence and her father," returned the woman, divesting herself of bonnet and shawl.
"Well, had he any tidings of them?" inquired the invalid.
"At last accounts they were at Saratoga, intending in a few days to start on a tour up the Hudson and St. Lawrence, to Quebec, and thence to the mountain region of New Hampshire," answered the woman.