"Will you come into the next room a moment?" she said, "I have something to show you."
There seemed to be a shade of suspicion in his eyes, but he made no objection, and Clara conducted him to the drawing-room. It was dark. With a premonition of disappointment, Clara found a match on the mantel and lit the gas. After a hasty glance around she opened the door to the dining-room.
"Lou!" she whispered eagerly, "have you seen Mr. Poubalov?"
"No," replied Louise, coming forward and entering the parlor; "has he gone? Then it must have been he!"
"Who? What have you seen? Wait, come into the hall. Will you sit down just a minute longer, Mr. Billings? I shall be but a moment."
Billings complied, and the young ladies passed quickly into the hall, where the first thing that Clara saw were Poubalov's hat and stick lying upon a table. She turned in the utmost wonderment upon her cousin.
"All I can say," said Louise, "is that I saw a man leap over the hedge into Mr. Jordan's grounds a short time after you went into the drawing-room to meet Poubalov. I couldn't tell who it was, couldn't even see that he had no hat on. I feared he might be a tramp, but thought then that he had been frightened away, and that there was no danger."
"He was frightened away?" murmured Clara, feeling her blood run cold; "he dared not face his man Billings!"
"I supposed," continued Louise, in agitation, "that Poubalov was with you. I heard no voices, but thought perhaps that you had gone into the library with him, for a door closed once."
"Yes, when Billings came. Oh! if Litizki were only here!"