"I declare, Miss Day," said Cap, laughing, "you have the most accomplished, polite and agreeable servants here that I ever met with! Think with what a courteous welcome this woman received me—'Here you are again!' she said. 'You'll come once too often for your own good, and that I tell you.' I answered that every time I came it appeared to be once too often for her liking. She rejoined, 'The colonel has come home, and he don't like company, so I advise you to make your call a short one.' I assured her that I should measure the length of my visit by the breadth of my will—— But good angels, Clara! what is the matter? You look worse than death!" exclaimed Capitola, noticing for the first time the pale, wild, despairing face of her companion.
Clara clasped her hands as if in prayer and raised her eyes with an appealing gaze into Capitola's face.
"Tell me, dear Clara, what is the matter? How can I help you? What shall I do for you?" said our heroine.
Before trusting herself to reply, Clara gazed wistfully into Capitola's eyes, as though she would have read her soul.
Cap did not blanch nor for an instant avert her own honest, gray orbs; she let Clara gaze straight down through those clear windows of the soul into the very soul itself, where she found only truth, honesty and courage.
The scrutiny seemed to be satisfactory for Clara soon took the hand of her visitor and said:
"Capitola, I will tell you. It is a horrid, horrid story, but you shall know all. Come with me to my chamber."
Cap pressed the hand that was so confidingly placed in hers and accompanied Clara to her room, where, after the latter had taken the precaution to lock the door, the two girls sat down for a confidential talk.
Clara, like the author of Robin Hood's Barn, "began at the beginning" of her story, and told everything—her betrothal to Traverse Rocke; the sudden death of her father; the decision of the Orphans' Court; the departure of Traverse for the far West; her arrival at the Hidden House; the interruption of all her epistolary correspondence with her betrothed and his mother; the awful and mysterious occurrences of that dreadful night when she suspected some heinous crime had been committed; and finally of the long, unwelcome suit of Craven Le Noir and the present attempt to force him upon her as a husband.
Cap listened very calmly to this story, showing very little sympathy, for there was not a bit of sentimentality about our Cap.