Half an hour later there was a knock at the door.
CHAPTER XVII
After a moment of indecision, during which Dolly, rosy with excitement, was hurriedly rearranging her disordered apparel, Charles-Norton, picking up the lamp, strode to the door and opened it. His lips were unable to hold a short exclamation of surprise. For, framed in the door-way, here stood the mysterious stranger whom twice he had caught watching him in the meadow.
He stood there, very tall, soft hat in hand, his white hair and cavalier mustachios shining softly in the rays of the lamp, the fringes of his buckskin garments all aglitter with the cold; above his right shoulder there peered affectionately the white face of his horse, the vague loom of whom could be divined behind in the night. He placed his right foot upon the lintel, and to the movement his long spur tinkled in a single silver note. "May I come in?" he asked gravely.
"Why, yes; why, yes," exclaimed Charles-Norton, recovering from his momentary petrifaction; "come in, make yourself at home, have a chair, have a seat!"