He leaned over the greasy baluster, shouting into the invisible regions below, and was answered promptly enough by a grimy maid-servant with a flickering dip-candle.
"'Tain't my fault, nor yet missis's," said this grimy maid. "Mrs.
Denover will sit in the dark, which I've——"
"That will do, Jane Anne," taking the dip and unceremoniously cutting her short. "Vamoose! evaporate! When I want you I'll sing out."
He re-entered the room and placed the candle on the table. The woman had risen, and stood with both hands clasped over her heart, a wild, gleaming, eager light in her black eyes. But she strove to restrain herself.
"I am glad to see you back, Mr. Parmalee," she said. "I have been expecting you for the last two days."
"And wearing yourself to skin and bone, as I knew you would, with your fidgets. What's the good of taking on so? I told you I'd come back as quick as I could, and I've done so. It ain't my fault that the time's been so long—it's Lady Kingsland's."
"You have seen her?"
"That I have. And very well worth seeing she is, I tell you. She's as handsome as a picture, though not so handsome as you must have been at her age, either, Mrs. Denover. And she says she'll see you."
"Oh, thank God!"
The woman tottered hack and sunk into a chair.