Effie had looked on scarcely knowing why, unaware that she was prying into other people’s concerns, suddenly attracted by the gleam of light, by the comfort of feeling some one near. The putting out of the lamp threw her back into her panic, yet changed it. She shrank away from the window with a sudden fear of the house in which something strange, she knew not what, was going on. Her mind was too much confused to ask what it was, to make any representation to herself of what she had seen; but the thought of these two people in the dark seemed to give a climax to all the nameless terrors of the night.
She went on by the side of the house, not knowing what to do, afraid now to ask admission, doubly afraid to turn back again, lost in confusion of mind and fatigue of body, which dimmed and drove out her original distress.
Now, however, she had come to the back regions in which the servants were stirring, and before she was aware a loud “Who’s that?” and the flash of a lantern upon her, brought her back to herself. It was the grooms coming back from the stable who thus interrupted her forlorn round.
“Who’s that?—it’s a woman—it’s a lassie! Lord bless us, it’s Miss Ogilvie!” they cried.
Effie had sufficient consciousness to meet their curious inspection with affected composure.
“I want to see Miss Dirom,” she said. “I lost my way in the dark; I couldn’t find the door. Can I see Miss Dirom?”
Her skirts were damp and clinging about her, her hair limp with the dews of the night, her whole appearance wild and strange: but the eyes of the grooms were not enlightened. They made no comments; one of them led her to the proper entrance, another sent the proper official to open to her, and presently she stood dazzled and tremulous in the room full of softened firelight and taperlight, warm and soft and luxurious, as if there was no trouble or mystery in the world, where Doris and Phyllis sat in their usual animated idleness talking to each other. One of them was lying at full length on a sofa, her arms about her head, her white cashmere dress falling in the much esteemed folds which that pretty material takes by nature; the other was seated on a stool before the fire, her elbows on her knees. The sound of their voices discoursing largely, softly, just as usual, was what Effie heard as the servant opened the door.
“Miss Ogilvie, did you say?—Effie!” They both gazed at her with different manifestations of dramatic surprise—without, for the moment, any other movement. Her appearance was astonishing at this hour, but nothing else seemed to disturb the placidity of these young women. Finally, Miss Phyllis rose from her stool in front of the fire.
“She has eyes like stars, and her hair is all twinkling with dew—quite a romantic figure. What a pity there is nobody to see it but Doris and me! You don’t mean to say you have come walking all this way?”
“Oh! what does it matter how I came?” cried Effie. “I came—because I could not stay away. There was nobody else that was so near me. I came to tell you—I am going to Fred.”