"I suppose I had better leave you to follow Olly up-stairs. I wish you to be fresh to entertain me during to-morrow's tedious journey."
"What, do you go back to-morrow too?" asked Gerald, in surprise. "I thought you were to stay till next week."
"I am afraid of the fever," pronounced De Forest with great gravity, his handsome eyes fastened on her face. "I am running away from it. I don't think it safe to stay another day in the place."
Gerald colored a little,—not at his words, but his look. "Then I suppose I need not bid you good-by," she said, turning away. She seemed almost embarrassed. "Good-night."
"Oh, but Gerald,—Mr. Halloway, you must say good-by to him you know," said Phebe, distressed.
"Surely. I forgot," replied Gerald, with uncomplimentary sincerity. She turned back, the faint shade of confusion quite disappearing. "Good-by, Mr. Halloway. I wish you success in finding all the Nightingales that you may require."
"Thank you," answered Denham, shortly. "Good-by."
Phebe glanced up at him quickly. She noticed a shade of bitterness in his voice for the first time. He said nothing more, and dropped Gerald's hand almost immediately. De Forest bent forward and raised it. "Am I to be defrauded of a good-night, Miss Vernor, simply because it is not my good-by? Au revoir."
It seemed to Phebe that he held Gerald's hand an instant longer when she would have withdrawn it, and that she permitted or at least did not resent it, and before releasing it he stooped and touched her fingers lightly with his lips. "Au revoir," he said again.
Halloway turned abruptly to Phebe. "Good-night." He spoke almost brusquely, and went directly away, without offering his hand or looking at any of them again.