"How did you get here? I'm so glad to see you!" Elise exclaimed when Lola appeared at the cottage next morning.
"Came last night," Lola said, giving her a hug, "but a miserable wreck held us up till long after dark. I would have come directly here even then, but I did not know how your mother was."
"She is much better," Elise said. "Come right in to see her."
Lola loved Mrs. Phillips very heartily, but she felt that Elise was precipitate in taking her immediately to her mother's room. She went along, of course, and sat down and talked to the two of them for an hour or more. There seemed to be no end to the things they discussed,—the more interminable they were because of the fact that Mrs. Hazard had not made her journey for the pleasure of a general conversation.
She could not understand why Elise did this thing. She tried to read the young lady's reason in her face, but that told nothing. It had not the elation that bespoke a heart joyous in its love. Neither, in the conventional gayety of the three-cornered conversation, did it betray a heart that was desolate. The only thing certain was Elise's evident avoidance of a tête-à-tête with her best friend.
It came to pass Mrs. Phillips had to dismiss them on the plea of exhaustion. Lola apologized profusely. Elise felt guilty, but she asked for no pardon.
The young women went out on the broad veranda. Elise offered Lola the hammock; but Mrs. Hazard was unconsciously too intent upon a present purpose to assume such a purposeless attitude. She took a rocking-chair, but she did not rock. As Elise arranged herself in the hammock, her friend bethought herself as to how she should begin her inquiries. She thought best not to display too minute an acquaintance with the situation.
Elise had indeed some curiosity to know how Rutledge had come into possession of the letter, and believed that Lola could throw light on that matter. But to ask about it was too much like opening the grave of love: and she recoiled. Looking at her face in repose, Lola was convinced that things had gone wrong. This made her take the more thought for an opening.
In the hush before the talk would begin, the boy brought the morning's paper. Lola, seated nearest the steps, took it from his hand. She did not have to unfold it to read what was of supreme interest. As she read, her eyes danced. Half finished, she glanced from the paper to Elise, whose face was apathy clothed in flesh. Lola sought the paper again, feeling that the spooks were playing a trick upon her. It was very plain reading, however. She crushed the paper in her lap, and studied the profile of the girl in the hammock.
"Elise!" she called, still feeling that the spooks had her.