With what indignant scorn Margaret read the account of his presumed love for herself!
"He has taken his measures," she mused, "to force me into showing my hand, before I have taken one move against him. He is too clever for me. What shall I do?"
Pondering hour after hour, at length she made up her little plan with doubt and misgiving.
"Colonel Brand is coming here this evening, Mrs. Chetwode," she said, as the dusk slowly deepened on stone parapet and spiked rail, "and I wish you to bear me company in the library. You know I do not like the colonel, so you must be my chaperon."
When the suitor came to his lady's bower, on a horse which smoked with hard and furious riding, and when he followed the servant to the library, he found the lady of his heart standing with a demeanor in every way proper for the occasion, while the old housekeeper, in her best black satin, sat behind the statue of St. George, sedately knitting.
"May I entreat the honor of a private interview?" asked the smooth voice.
"We can be as private here as you wish," was the polite reply. "My housekeeper cannot hear anything unless you specially address her."
The colonel bowed and expressed himself satisfied, but if the angry glance which he cast among the murky shadows, where the bright needles clicked, meant anything, the colonel lied.
He took the chair assigned him, but evidently his proposed form of declaration was routed by this unexpected arrangement.
His fingers plucked at his dark mustache in a nervous and undecided manner, and he took a long time to deliberate before he could trust himself to launch upon the momentous subject.