"I live for nothing else!"
"You are not so pledged to the Me you play tennis with that you can not serve Rosalind if she asks it?"
"No; you have only to ask. But I must see you once more—as Rosalind!"
"Stop being silly, and listen carefully." And I thought I heard a sob in the moment's silence before she spoke.
"I want you to go, at once, to the house of the boat-maker on Tippecanoe Creek; go as fast as you can!" she implored.
"To the house of the man who calls himself Hartridge, the canoe-maker, at Red Gate?"
"Yes; you must see that no harm comes to him to-night."
There was no mistaking now the sobs that broke her sentences, and my mind was so a-whirl with questions that I stammered incoherently.
"Will you go—will you go?" she demanded in a voice so low and broken that I scarcely heard.
"Yes, at once," and the voice vanished, and while I still stood staring at the instrument the operator at Annandale blandly asked me what number I wanted. The thread had snapped and the spell was broken. I stared helplessly at the thing of wood and wire for half a minute; then the girl's appeal and my promise rose in my mind distinct from all else. I ordered my horse before returning to the library, where Gillespie was coolly turning over the magazines on the table. I was still dazed, and something in my appearance caused him to stare.