"Miss Rose! What are you doing here?"
"I am dancing to keep myself warm."
"But why are you here at all?"
"I came after Emma," she whispered confidentially, with a suppressed laugh. "She is always going to Mother Butter's after tea now, and she'll never let me go with her; it's cold she says; so I just ran after her to-night. I think there's somebody staying here that Emma comes to see," continued the incautious girl in a lower whisper: "some friend of Mr. Henry's that dare not go out in the day-time."
"Some friend of Mr. Henry's that dare not go out in the day-time!" echoed Trace, repeating the words mechanically, his whole thoughts full of the man who might be there, and might be Hopper. "Why do you think so, Miss Rose?"
"Never you mind," returned the young lady, with scant ceremony. "I overheard Emma say something to Mr. Henry the other day; but it's nothing to you."
At that moment the house door opened, and Miss Brabazon appeared at it, attended by Mother Butter with a candle in her hand. "You will tell Mr. Henry, then, when he comes in," Miss Brabazon was saying to the woman, the words reaching Trace's ear distinctly, as he stepped aside out of view.
"I will, Miss Emma. He'll be in directly now, and I'll tell him as soon as he comes."
Miss Brabazon walked away quickly; Rose allowed her to go some distance, and then ran after her with a shout. A few words of surprised reprimand echoed on the night air, and they went on together. Trace followed quietly: it was just possible he might catch a stray word, touching the "friend" of Mr. Henry's: and he knew now the latter was not in. In the dwarf shrubbery that wound round near the chapel, between the cricket field and the gymnasium ground, they met Mr. Henry. Trace stepped outside it, behind the bushy laurel trees, and there, rather to his surprise, found himself close to his father, who happened to have strolled to the spot as he waited for his son. Mr. Henry raised his hat as he spoke to Miss Brabazon, and the bright moon lit up his features with perfect distinctness to the view of the gentlemen watchers.
"I have left a message for you with Mrs. Butter," said Miss Brabazon. "You will be kind enough to attend to it for me."