"Why, Susan, what was the matter?" the professor asked carelessly.
"I got no need o' him nohow, an' Ise tiahed o' his sass, an' Ise tiahed o' seeing so many folks aroun'."
The professor secretly agreed with her.
"He wants his money," went on the old darkey, shamefacedly. "He 'low as how he's comin' back dis ebenin'."
"All right. How much is it?"
Susan named a sum, and the professor handed it to her, and hurried on into the library. He had had no such opportunity for days for a talk with Montague, but he found that young man so inattentive a listener that he was not sorry when Frances pulled aside the portière and called that she was ready and the horse was there.
Frosts and rains had made the roads rough, but here and there by wayside path or sandy stretch, the mare showed her gait, swift and smooth. It was a beautiful world through which they rode, the mists closing about them shutting in the distant peaks and clinging to the bare fields' breast and condensing in jewelled drops on fence and bush and dried brown grasses; and the exhilaration of movement, the comfort of thoughtful, watchful companionship which roused no hateful mood, cheered the young girl to forgetfulness of all else.
But there was the next day for remembrance, when the rain shut her in, and the storm lashed along the mountains and beat across the quadrangle; and the next, when the clouds held sullen guard over the hill-tops. Three days had gone by, and Lawson had not returned. It was the evening of that third day that, sitting in her old chair before the library fire, while her father was reading absorbedly not far away, Frances heard the bell ring sharply. She did not know that every nerve in her was tense as she heard the voice in the hall when Susan opened the door.
"Mr. Lawson," said Susan, coming into the room; "he walked straight on into the parlor."
Frances kept her face turned away; she felt the hot flush there, as she got to her feet and pulled her fleecy scarf about her bare neck. There was a strange feeling of suffocation in her throat, but she set her lips firmly and held her head high as she walked across the hall, her gown rustling about her.