CHAPTER VI
AND HOLDS A RECEPTION AFTER ALL
Christina took the card from him, and seemed to put him to one side. Almost inaudibly she said, "I will go down."
Before Herrick could prevent her, a voice from just outside the door replied, "Don't trouble yourself, Miss Hope. May I come in?" Ten Euyck, hat in hand, appeared in the doorway.
He looked from one to the other, noting Christina's tear-stained face, with a civil, sour smile. "I am sorry if I intrude. I had no idea Mr. Herrick was to be my host. The truth is, Miss Hope, I followed you and have been waiting for you, in the hope of making peace—where it was once my unhappy fortune to make war."
Christina said, "You followed me!"
"But I shouldn't have yielded to that impulse so far as to—well, break into Mr. Herrick's apartment, if I had not become, in the meanwhile, simply the messenger of—a higher power." Ten Euyck tried to say the last phrase like a jest, but it stuck in his throat. He moved out of the doorway, and there stepped past him into the room the man whom Herrick had seen at the Pilgrims'. "Miss Hope, Mr. Herrick," Ten Euyck said, "Mr. Kane; our District Attorney."
Kane nodded quickly to each of them. "Miss Hope," he said, "I don't often play postman; but when I met our friend Ten Euyck outside and he told me you were here, the opportunity was too good to lose." He took a letter out of his pocket, watching her with shrewd and smiling eyes. "We've been tampering with your mail. Allow me."
Christina took the letter wonderingly, but at its heading her face contemptuously brightened. "I can hardly see," she said, passing it to Herrick. "Read it, will you?—He would have to know anyhow," she said sweetly to the two officials. "We are just engaged to be married. You must congratulate us."