"My God!" he breathed to himself, "I was mistaken. It is Lora, of course, in that bright-hued dress. How like she is to Xenie! I ought to have remembered that my uncle's wife would be in mourning. Yes, that is Xenie by her mother's side, and Doctor Shirley told me the fatal truth!"
He walked away from the window, and made several hurried turns up and down before the house.
"Shall I go in?" he asked himself. "I know all I came for, now. Yes, I will be fool enough to go in anyhow."
He went up the steps and rang the bell, waiting nervously for the great, carved door to open.
[CHAPTER X.]
The door swung slowly open, and the gray-haired old servitor whom Howard could remember from childhood, took his card and disappeared down the hallway.
Presently he returned, and informed the young man that the ladies would receive him; and Howard, half regretting, when too late, the hasty impulse that had prompted him enter, was ushered into the drawing-room.
The next moment he found himself returning a stiff, icy bow from his uncle's widow, a half-embarrassed greeting from Mrs. Carroll, and shaking hands with the beautiful Lora, who gave him a shy yet perfectly self-possessed welcome and referred to his visit to the country two years before in a pretty, naive way, showing that she remembered him perfectly; although, as she averred, she was little more than a child at the time.