It must have been over an hour later that Blanche seemed to awaken to a perception that the big oak door behind her, which gave access to the deep-eaved porch, had opened and closed.
She looked round; and, in the candle-light, for the fire had died down, she saw Varick, looking neither to the right nor to the left, walk quickly across the long room and slip noiselessly through the door leading to the interior of the house.
Then it was seven o'clock? Nearly three-quarters of an hour before she must go up and dress for dinner.
Almost at once she was asleep again, to be, however, thoroughly awakened a few moments later by the opening and the shutting of a door.
It was the old butler, a man Blanche had come to like and to respect.
He held a salver in his hand, and on the salver was a letter. "Mr. Varick asked me to give you this note at a quarter-past seven, ma'am. I understood him to say that he might be late for dinner to-night as he had to go up to the Reservoir Cottage."
Blanche sat up, all her senses suddenly on the alert.
"Mr. Varick came in some minutes ago," she said, "at least, I think he did."
She was beginning to wonder if Lionel had really come in, or if she had only dreamt that he had done so.