The day was darkening fast now towards the early evening. Fine snow was falling thick, and the wind came in gusts. There was no time to be lost in getting home. Yet Annabella paused at the very coach door and looked at Hazel. 'Have you done anything?' she asked anxiously.
At the instant a gentleman ran against them with an umbrella, and lifting the same suddenly to make his excuses, a very familiar figure was revealed to them. Stuart Nightingale himself. A flash of disagreeable expression crossed his face for that one second of surprise, then he had regained his usual manner.
'Quel plaisir!' he cried, bowing low. 'Two such ladies, in the snow, here! at Fort Washington! The charms of the surprise is manifold. What has procured it? mercy, or vanity? One or the other it must be. A sick friend?or a French mantua-maker? But you are never going to drive back to New York in this awful storm?'
Annabella drew herself up and made no answer. Wych Hazel looked at the snow.
'Good evening,' she said. 'The storm is not much.'
They were to have more of it, however, than she had bargained for. Stuart's remonstrances were not listened to; the ladies entered their carriage and drove off. But their driver, who was not Mrs. Powder's servant, had improved his leisure time during their stay in the house by making visits to a neighbouring drinking saloon; and now, confused by the mingled efforts of wind and brandy, took the road north instead of south from the village. To spare her sister, and indeed herself, Annabella had taken a hackney coach, and this was what came of it. The ladies were thinking of something else and did not see what their charioteer was doing. Annabella broke at last a silence which had prevailed for some time.
'What did she say?'
'Said she didn't care.'
'She would not listen to you!'
'Not this time.'