"You'll be here till after supper," she said to Helen, leaving. "So I won't say good-bye."
But she miscalculated both the warmth of the friend's welcome and the heavy sledding. When she returned, long after dark, she found Mrs. Leslie reading a novel by her bedroom stove. In a loose wrapper, crossed feet comfortably propped on the plated stove-rail, a plate of red apples at her elbow, and the light comfortably adjusted on the table behind her, she was the picture of comfort. "Having a jolly good time all by myself," she explained. "Fred's not home yet, and Captain Chapman went over to win a little from Ernest Poole at poker. Helen? Just gone. She waited and waited and waited, but you were so late that we both thought you had concluded to stay the night. Didn't you pass her at the Forks—or hear the bells? That double string of Fred's can be heard to heaven on a still night."
"Oh, was that she? Hired man came for her, I suppose?" Mrs. Jack indifferently inquired, as she laid off her furs.
"No. Sinclair drove her with our ponies. What's the matter?"
Eyes dark and dilated with fear, Mrs. Jack faced her. "Do you mean to tell me—" Breaking hastily off, she ran through bed and living rooms, almost upsetting Newton on her way to the outer door. "Mr. Danvers! Oh, Mr. Danvers! Mr. Danvers! Mr.—Danvers!" she called.
But the night returned only the clash of his bells.
Sweeping back in, she faced Mrs. Leslie, flushed with the one righteous emotion of her fast life. "You let her go out—alone—with that—" Choking, she ran into her own room and slammed the door, leaving the other two women staring.
Edith Newton answered the lift of the other's eyebrows. "Another of Maud's raves."
XVII
—AND ITS FINALE