"Now are you coming?" asks Helen.
"Would you? We've never been here without my worshipful cousin before; I should like to investigate his domestic arrangements. Needle and thread. Now what do you suppose he is doing with needle and thread? Oh, it's that little lacework that Mrs.——Sketches! I wonder whom he's sketching. You, Helen? Me? Upside down, of course. No, it's——Yes, we may as well go. Come!"
And in the same breath Mrs. McLean blows out the candle and precedes them. Mr. Laudersdale scorns to secure the sketch; and holding back the boughs for Miss Heath, and assisting her down the steps, quietly follows.
Meantime, Mrs. Laudersdale has reached her point of departure again, has stolen up out of the white fog now gathering over the lake, slipped into her former place, and found all nearly as before. The candles had been taken away, so that light came merely from the hall and doorways. Some of the guests were in the brilliant dining-room, some in the back-parlor. Mr. Raleigh, while Fate was thus busying herself about him, still sat motionless, one hand upon the sofa's side, one on the back, little Rite still sleeping on his knee. Capua came and exchanged a few words with his master; then the colored nurse stepped through the groups, sought the child, and carried her away, head and arms hanging heavy with slumber. Still Mr. Raleigh did not move. Mrs. Laudersdale stood in the window, vivid and glowing. There were no others in the room.
"Where is Mrs. McLean?" asked Mary Purcell at the door, after the charade in which she had been engaged was concluded.
"Gone across the lake with Nell and Mr. Laudersdale for a letter," replied Master Fred Heath, who had returned that afternoon from the counting-room, with his employer, and now sauntered by.
Mrs. Laudersdale started; she had not escaped too early; but then——Her heart was beating in her throat.
"What letter?" asked Mrs. Heath, with amiable curiosity, as she joined them.
"Do you know what letter, Mr. Raleigh?"
"One from India, Madame," was his response.