“So I dreamed, and watched the stars’ far splendor
Glimmering in the azure darkness start,
While the stars of trust rose bright and tender
Through the twilight shadows of my heart.”
With a muttered imprecation, Leonard Yorke thrust the paper into his pocket and hastened from the room. In the hall outside he encountered Miss Rutledge. Upstairs, in the chamber of death, the body of Rosamond Arleigh was being prepared for its last resting-place. The house was very still; the awful shadow of death rested over it.
Below stairs, the servants with busy hands were removing all traces of the ball—the faded garlands and drooping evergreens, the débris of the supper. Everything was done in a swift, silent fashion to restore the house to its usual order and decorum; and the drawing-room, where only a few hours before merriment had reigned supreme, was being prepared to receive the body of the mistress of The Oaks. The burial casket was already ordered, and in a short time the place which had known Rosamond Arleigh would know her no more.
“You look tired and troubled, Leonard,” began Mrs. Rutledge, kindly. “Come and have some coffee. You are not able to ride home now.”
“Thanks, dear Mrs. Rutledge,” he returned, “but I could not take anything, and I think I had better go home at once. Miss Glyndon will break the sad news to my mother, and she will be looking anxiously for me. Can I do anything for you—or”—with a slight hesitation—“for Violet?”
Mrs. Rutledge shook her head.
“I will let you know, my dear boy, if there should be anything for you to do,” she returned. “You will come back soon?”