All unaware of Kathleen's nearness to him, the young actor had come here to this house, seemingly led by the subtle hand of Fate.
Kathleen glided to the falling curtains, and, drawing one ever so lightly apart, gazed with eager, yearning eyes into the room.
Her hungry eyes feasted on the sight of her false lover as he sat in full view, opposite Mrs. Stone, in a large velvet arm-chair.
Never, it seemed to bonny Kathleen, had she seen him look so grandly handsome, not even in his spirited impersonation of Prince Karl, in which he had so thrilled her girlish heart.
But Ralph Chainey was pale, and in his splendid, thoughtful brown eyes lay the haunting shadow of a cruel pain. He was tortured by his failure to find lost Kathleen.
But the conventional smile that played over his handsome face as he talked to the gifted woman before him deceived Kathleen. It seemed to her that he was well and happy, that he had forgotten that she ever lived—the girl he had pretended to love so dearly.
"I have the plot of a new story upstairs in my study, and I believe it is just the thing you want, Mr. Chainey," said Mrs. Stone, vivaciously. She rose, and added: "I will go and get it, but if I am some little time away, please go into the library, and amuse yourself with a book. I must confess that I am very careless, and often misplace my manuscripts."
Mrs. Stone vanished through the door, and Ralph Chainey, who was so unhappy that he dreaded nothing so much as his own sad thoughts, immediately turned toward the library.
Kathleen gave a gasp of surprise and terror, and turned to fly.