"And the door leading to the drawing-room?"
"Is closed, Miss."
"Then go down, Hagar; open the library door, and leave it open. Move the fire screen opposite the door leading to the drawing-room. When we are all within the library turn out the light. That is all."
Hagar moved away to do her bidding, smiling grimly.
Time was dragging, in the drawing-room.
Cora was there, not from choice, but because Madeline had so ordered it, and the aggrieved lady was not at all inclined to conversation.
Miss Arthur, who was hoping for a tête-á-tête with her lover, was alarmingly glum. She had accepted, in good faith, his statement that he had received a note from the clergyman, saying that he had been suddenly called away and would be absent some days, but she did not quite understand why another would not do as well. Somehow, all that day, she had found no opportunity for hinting to her lover that a Unitarian minister lived quite near.
Finding the ladies so little disposed to be entertained, the two men retired within themselves, each after his own peculiar fashion.
Lucian Davlin lounged, in his favorite manner, in a big arm chair, and absorbed himself in the mazes of "Lalla Rookh."