"Now, if you have finished that rigmarole, in which nobody, I think, is in the least interested, we will go to the house, for I am taking cold."
The others rose, and the three moved towards the house. Horace Townsend did not move towards the house, but in another direction, his heart on fire and his brain in a whirl. But as they went off he heard the Captain say, apparently in response to some remark of Mrs. Burton Hayley's which was not caught at that distance:
"Of course I believe him to be a coward as well as a disreputable character. Any man who would flinch from any exposure, especially like that on a mere edge of a cliff, to save life, is the basest kind of a coward. Such men ought to stand a little while among bullets, as we have to do, and they would soon show themselves for what they are worth."
Horace Townsend saw nothing more of either that night, or of any of the others with whom this narration has to do. There was no music, other than that of the piano, in the parlor of the Crawford, and early beds were in requisition. Many, who had not ascended the mountains, had ridden hard and long in other directions; and for the people of the Mount Washington cavalcade themselves—they were very tired, very much exhausted and very sleepy, and romance and flirtation were obliged to succumb to aching bones and the invitations of soft pillows. Halstead Rowan, even, did not roll a single game of ten-pins before he retired to his lonely chamber—physico-thermometrical proof of the general worn-out condition!
CHAPTER XVIII.
Horace Townsend and Margaret Hayley—A strange Rencontre in the Parlor—Another Rencontre, equally strange but less pleasant—How Clara Vanderlyn faded away prom the Mountains—And how the Comanche Rider disappeared.
Breakfast was nearly over, the next morning, and many of the guests had left the tables, when Horace Townsend strolled into the parlor, attracted by the ripple of a set of very light fingers on the piano—something not usual at that early hour. He found the great room entirely unoccupied, except by the player; and he had half turned to leave the room in order to avoid the appearance of intrusion, when he ventured a look at the pianist and discovered her to be Margaret Hayley! Then he hesitated for a moment, bowed, and was again about to retire, when the young girl rose from the piano and advanced towards him. He was a man, past those years when the blood should rush to the face with the rapidity of that of a school-girl; but the dark cheek was certainly flame in an instant as she came nearer, and when she spoke his name his whole appearance evinced some feeling so much like terror that the object of it seemed to start back with a corresponding emotion. That was the first instance in which he had chanced to be alone for one moment with the lady, from the time of their first meeting at the Profile, and something might be forgiven a bachelor on that account; but some cause beyond this must have moved that man, accustomed alike to society, to the company of women and the making of public appearances.
If he tried to speak, his breath did not shape itself into audible words; and Margaret Hayley was very near him and had herself spoken, before he in any degree recovered from that strange confusion.