“You ain't, heigh?” thundered Barclay across the hall, and he stalked out of the sitting-room, looking over his eye-glasses, a newspaper in his hand. “Now, my lady, let me say to you that Alan Bishop shall never darken my door, and if you meet him again anywhere you shall go away and stay.”
“Father “—Dolly had never stood so tall in her high-heeled shoes nor so straight—“Father, you insulted Alan just now before Mrs. Alexander and Hattie, and I'm not going to have you do it any more. I love him, and I shall never love any other man, nor marry any other man. I know he loves me, and I'm going to stick to him.”
“Then the quicker you get away from here the better,” said the old man, beside himself with rage. “And when you go, don't you dare to come back again.”
The Colonel stalked from the room. Dolly glanced at her mother, who had a pale smile of half-frightened enjoyment on her face.
“I think you said 'most too much,” Mrs. Barclay said. “You'd better not drive him too far.”
Dolly went up to her room, and when supper was called, half an hour later, she declined to come down. However, Mrs. Barclay sent up a tray of delicacies by Aunt Milly, the old colored woman, which came back untouched.
It was the custom of the family to retire rather early at that season of the year, and by half-past nine the house was dark and still. Mrs. Barclay dropped to sleep quickly, but waked about one o' clock, and lay unable to drift into unconsciousness again for the delightful pastime of thinking over her daughter's love affair. She began to wonder if Dolly, too, might not be awake, and the prospect of a midnight chat on that of all topics made her pulse beat quickly. Slipping noiselessly out of bed, so as not to wake her husband, who was snoring in his bed across the room, she glided up-stairs. She had not been there a moment before the Colonel was waked by a low scream from her, and then he heard her bare feet thumping on the floor overhead as she crossed the hall into the other rooms. She screamed out again, and the Colonel sprang up, grasped his revolver, which always lay on the bureau, and ran into the hall. There he met his wife, half sliding down the stairs.
“Dolly's gone,” she gasped. “Her bed hasn't been touched. Oh, Seth, do you reckon anything has happened to her?”
The old man stared in the dim light of the hall, and then turned towards the door which opened on the back veranda. He said not a word, but was breathing hard. The cabin of old Ned and his wife, Aunt Milly, was near by.
“Ned; oh, Ned!” called out the Colonel.