The groom spoke. “Beg pardon, Miss Katherine?” and she knew she must have thought aloud.
Just then a black tree stump at the roadside seemed to spring out of the ghostly twilight, and Nick, who never had the blues, amused himself by shying at it. Ned caught the spirit of the lark and over the next mile these two good friends of Katherine's supplied her with just the kind of tonic she needed.
It was late when she reached home and she had but a narrow margin of time left in which to dress for dinner; but telling the groom not to take the horses to the stable she hurried into the house and came out a moment later with a handful of sugar. The two beautiful heads turned toward her as she came down the steps and Nick gave a satisfied little whicker. She fed them alternately, a lump at a time, talking to them all the while in the friendly bantering way they liked. She was quite impartial with the sugar, but while Ned with lowered head was sniffing at her pockets for more, she laid her cheek against Nick's white, silky nose and whispered to him:—
“I think I like you best to-night. You did just right to shy at that stump. No, Ned, it wouldn't be good for you to eat any more sugar just before dinner. Good-by. If it wouldn't shock father and dent the floor, I'd take you into the house with me. But I don't suppose you'd like it, though.”
Katherine was glad she was late and that she had to dress in a hurry. What she dreaded was being left alone with nothing to do but think. She had gone over the ground again and again until she had lost her sense of proportion. She had tried to believe that the raid was right and that her father's methods were above reproach; she had tried to be unwavering in her loyalty to his cause, but in spite of herself McNally's allusions and the fragmentary conversations she had overheard raised doubts which her father's evasions did not set at rest. In spite of herself her sympathies swung to the square, straightforward, courageous young fellow who had got into her heart without her knowing it. She had tried to make herself believe her father's insinuations about Jim Weeks; but what Harvey had told her, in his undiscriminating, hero-worshipping way, had made too deep an impression for that.
When she had finished dressing, as she stood before the mirror to take a final survey, she addressed a parting remark to the figure in the glass:—
“It won't do you any good to go on bothering this way. You haven't anything to do now but go down to dinner and be as charming as possible, particularly to Mr. McNally, whom you cordially detest. When the time comes to do something, I hope you'll do it right.”
It was just seven o'clock when she came down the stairs to be informed by the butler that the gentlemen had not come home yet, and should he serve dinner at once?
Katherine waited nearly half an hour, trying to amuse herself with a very pictorial magazine, and, finding that tiresome, by playing coon songs at the piano. But the piano reminded her of Mr. McNally, and she didn't want to think of him; so giving up trying to wait she ordered dinner.
Dining alone when you have made up your mind to it beforehand is not an unmixed evil; but in Katherine's frame of mind it was about as irritating as anything could be. When it was over she called for her coffee in a big cup, and she drank it, black and bitter, with a relish. The frown which for the last hour had been contracting her level brows disappeared, for she had thought of something to do. As she rose from the table she said to the butler:—