"Why?"
"Because I've done a dreadful thing—perfectly dreadful."
"To me?"
She nodded.
Perplexed and curious, he attempted to learn what she meant, but she parried everything smiling. And now, the faster the horses sped, the faster her pulses beat, and the more uncertain and repentant she became until her uncertainty increased to a miniature panic, and, thoroughly scared, she relapsed into a silence from which he found it beyond his powers to lure her.
For already a bright light was streaming out toward them from somewhere ahead. In its rays the falling snow turned golden, every separate flake distinct as they passed a great gate with the lodge beside it and went spinning away along a splendid wooded avenue and then straight up toward a great house, every window ablaze with light.
John Seabury jumped out and offered his aid to Cecil Gay as several servants appeared under the porte-cochère.
"I had no idea that Jack Austin lived so splendidly," he whispered to Miss Gay, as they entered the big hall.
But she was past speech now—a thoroughly scared girl; and she lost no time in following a maid into the elevator, whither Seabury presently followed her in tow of a man-servant.