“What has happened?” asked Miss Barfoot, when they at length met.
“Happened? Nothing that I know of.”
“You look very strange.”
“Your imagination. I have been packing; perhaps it’s from stooping over the trunk.”
This by no means satisfied Mary, who felt that things mysterious were going on about her. But she could only wait, repeating to herself that the grand denouement decidedly was not far off.
At nine o’clock sounded the visitor’s bell. If, as she thought likely, the caller was Everard, Miss Barfoot decided that she would disregard everything but the dramatic pressure of the moment, and leave those two alone together for half an hour. Everard it was; he entered the drawing-room with an unusual air of gaiety.
“I have been in the country all day,” were his first words; and he went on to talk of trivial things—the doings of a Cockney excursion party that had come under his notice.
In a few minutes Mary made an excuse for absenting herself. When she was gone, Rhoda looked steadily at Barfoot, and asked—
“Have you really been out of town?”
“Why should you doubt it?”