"A cup of tea will put you right," said Duncan.
CHAPTER XIV.
DANGER.
The races were over, and the rays of the setting sun streamed through the western window of the little dining-room where Walter Sedger's party was seated. The glass and plate glistened in the fading sunlight, and cast many deep shadows on the white table cover, while the faces of the people sitting there were flushed with the first glow of the approaching twilight. The servants moved quietly from place to place, and the merry conversation of Sedger's friends mingled with the soft strains of a Viennese waltz coming through the open hallway door. The thousands who had crowded the course that day had rumbled back over the dusty roads to the city. The huge Grand Stand was silent and deserted, and only the few parties dining at the club remained of the great crowd that had cheered Belle of Newport in her Derby victory. The refreshing cool of the evening seemed to inspire the tired people with new spirits, and the addition to their number of Jack Elliot and his coaching party supplied the zest of variety, while the tales of a clever raconteur produced peals of merry laughter and called forth the utmost efforts of the staid French waiters to preserve their habitual immobility of countenance.
When the dinner was over and the party had removed to the veranda for coffee and cigars, each person there had forgotten, for the moment, all the cares of life, and was lost in the delightful joy of living. Exception must, however, be made of Marion, for, although the society of others usually enabled her to cast aside the depressing influences which often afflicted her, on this occasion she was unusually silent, and had been quite unresponsive to the loquacious efforts exerted by the grain broker on her right to arouse her interest. She now sat a little removed from the rest and gazed moodily out over the deserted race-course, thinking over the events of the past few months, and wondering, in a dazed sort of way, what the outcome would be. The men had gathered together and were discussing sport, while the women talked animatedly about a certain Mrs. Johnson whose actions had lately been disapproved of in certain quarters, so Marion was permitted to follow the current of her fancies undisturbed.
It was just dark enough for the freshly lighted cigars to glow in the fading light. With the setting of the sun had come the silence evening casts over a busy city, and except the occasional croaking of a frog in the Club House lake, or the distant whistle of a locomotive, there was no sound to break the evening quiet. Away over by the long row of red-roofed stables a pair of work-horses were slowly dragging a harrow over the deserted race-course, and they and the laborer trudging behind them were the only evidences of life which Marion could see. The last sun-gleam left the sky, but a fading tinge of light still rested upon the clouds. Marion watched it for a moment,—then it was gone. It seemed to her like a life which fades slowly into oblivion. She often thought of the unseen, and tried, occasionally, to form some life theory which seemed rational. To-night, in the stillness which came after the bustle of the day, she felt singularly alone. She looked up into the impenetrable darkness and to her fancy the world seemed a frightful pit of blackness with a mass of living creatures at the bottom,—writhing in misery and gasping for a breath of happiness. And God? An awful monster at the pit's mouth, baiting the distorted souls with pestilence or dangling hopes before their burning eyes, only to mock their struggles and let them sink down! down! down! Death comes to one sufferer, and then, with a gloating laugh, the monster drops another life into the pit to let it writhe in its awful misery. Marion shuddered at her fancy, and glanced up as if expecting to see the monster's eyes gleaming at the pit's mouth. The thought was horrible, and she covered her eyes with her hands to shut out her distorted imaginations, asking herself if there was no power strong enough to drive away the spirit of gloom which beset her, and make her pulses beat with joy. Deep in her heart she felt there was such a power, but it troubled her to think of it.
"Mrs. Sanderson." She looked up, startled, and saw Duncan by her side. "I thought you might like to walk on the other side of the veranda. It is delightfully cool there."
For a moment she hesitated. "What can be the harm?" she thought. "None," was the answer she gave her question, and then she followed Duncan to the northern side of the veranda where an arm of the building hid them from the others. The moon was rising and her soft light was shed upon the soughing trees, and the stretch of white roadway before them. It was one of those perfect nights of early summer when the vexatious spirits of the day seem lulled to sleep by the mild airs of heaven, and as Marion sat there looking out over the moonlit park, she wondered at the gruesome fancies which had filled her mind but a moment before.
"It is a joy to live on such a night as this," she said, after the moment of silence which followed their coming.