When I returned to the parlor she had gone up stairs, tired with her excursion, I heard, and longing for a night's rest. I sat down by my mother, and we talked until midnight, while Helen sang ballads to her father in the next room in a rare contralto voice which had gained strength and richness since I heard it last.
When, finally, Mr. Floyd—who always put off going to bed as a final necessity—allowed me to go up stairs, I found inside my dressing-case a folded paper on which these lines were written: "The prettiest hour of the day at The Headlands is at seven o'clock in the morning, down among the rocks."
I should have felt no doubt whose hand had put the notelet there even if it had failed to breathe the perfume of violets, which no one who knew Georgy Lenox could hesitate to recognize.
CHAPTER XVI.
It was full two o'clock before I began to think of sleeping, but nevertheless I was on the rocks next morning at seven; and my punctuality was rewarded by the sight of Miss Lenox walking on the shore in a white dress. I clambered down and joined her before she seemed aware of my presence: then she turned and laughed softly in my face. "What an early riser you are!" she exclaimed. "You have brought excellent habits home from the lazy Old World."
"But it would be such a pity to miss 'the prettiest hour of the day'!" I retorted quickly.
"Were you surprised to meet me last night?" she asked.
"Perhaps so. I had at least not expected it. I was in Belfield on Wednesday, and supposed that you were there."