“O, much better you can prove it, Susie;” and under the fragrant lilacs, under the dear, bright stars, a thought blacker than mortal night entered Dan’s heart.
“How do I know you pray for me?” he asked, caressing her hand very softly. “I do not hear you. Come to my room and pray for me there, and I shall believe you.”
“Do you really wish me to?” she asked, with a look that would have softened any heart but that of this sleek young tiger, whose white teeth glistened in the moonlight.
“I will,” she said simply, mentally reproaching herself for a momentary suspicion that had entered her mind.
When Susie entered Dan’s room on her pious mission, he at once closed the door and locked it. Susie protested earnestly, but the only reply it elicited was a long-continued fit of subdued laughter which Dan indulged himself in, tilting back his chair and holding his fingers interlaced at the back of his head. Then he insisted upon a kiss as a preliminary.
“No, no,” cried Susie. “Open the door and let me go. O Dan, you were not serious, after all. I wish I had not believed you;” and the poor girl covered her face and sobbed.
“Serious? Never was so serious in my life, as I can prove to you; but what is the use of praying for me if my heart is not in the right mood, and nothing can do that but a kiss, though a hundred would make it surer. How Susie must love me. She cries because I ask for one.” * * * *
Susie never prayed for Dan that night. Her prayers were all for herself. Alas! that they should have availed so little!
CHAPTER X.
CLARA’S RETURN—THE DRAMA IN THE DOCTOR’S STUDY.
The early days of September had come, and the day of Clara’s return. Dinah had scoured every pot and pan until they shone like mirrors, cooked the cakes and “lollypops” generally that Clara had liked so well as a child, for she was still a child in Dinah’s thought, which took no note of the changes that four years must bring to a young lady. She longed for Clara’s final homecoming, for between the twins and her there had always been a kind of feud, and they were, according to her, “no comfort to the house;” and though she liked Susie very much, there was nothing in the world so bright and lovely in her eyes as “Miss Clary.”