When they had left the morning room, Evan Lamotte, too, sauntered out and down the hall, and, hearing their voices in amiable dialogue, interspersed by the click of the billiard balls, he muttered:
"Ah, Constance, you are a witch indeed! you have made my magnificent brother adopt my rôle for once; so long as you are here we may depend upon Frank to keep our bull out of the china shop. So, as one good turn deserves another, I will just give your mare a turn and look in at 'Old Forty Rods;' I'm safe to go off duty for the day."
And ten minutes later the reckless youth was galloping Frank's blooded mare along the highway en route for the saloon known to the initiated as "Old Forty Rods."
Left alone together, Mr. Jasper Lamotte and his wife gazed at each other in silence for a moment, and then he said:
"Do you think it safe to leave them alone together too long?"
"Who, Frank and——"
"Pshaw, no; the girls."
"It is quite safe; nevertheless I will go up to them," and Mrs. Lamotte arose and went slowly up the stairs, and softly past the door where Sybil and Constance sat together, straight to her own room, which she entered, closed and locked the door carefully, and allowing the look of haughty calm to die out of her face, she threw herself into a dressing chair, and pressed two feverish hands against a face that was sad and bitter and full of weariness.
Left to his own devices, Jasper Lamotte seated himself at a desk and dashed off a few hurried lines, which he directed to
"Mr. Jerry Belknap,
"No. —, Room 7, Blank St.,
"N. Y."