The day wore away to nightfall, and then Mrs. Lapham said she MUST know. Penelope said there was no one to ask; the clerks would all be gone home, and her mother said yes, there was Mr. Corey; they could send and ask him; he would know.
The girl hesitated. "Very well," she said, then, scarcely above a whisper, and she presently laughed huskily. "Mr. Corey seems fated to come in, somewhere. I guess it's a Providence, mother."
She sent off a note, inquiring whether he could tell her just where her father had expected to be that night; and the answer came quickly back that Corey did not know, but would look up the book-keeper and inquire. This office brought him in person, an hour later, to tell Penelope that the Colonel was to be at Lapham that night and next day.
"He came in from New York, in a great hurry, and rushed off as soon as he could pack his bag," Penelope explained, "and we hadn't a chance to ask him where he was to be to-night. And mother wasn't very well, and----"
"I thought she wasn't looking well when she was at the office to-day. And so I thought I would come rather than send," Corey explained in his turn.
"Oh, thank you!"
"If there is anything I can do--telegraph Colonel Lapham, or anything?"
"Oh no, thank you; mother's better now. She merely wanted to be sure where he was."
He did not offer to go, upon this conclusion of his business, but hoped he was not keeping her from her mother. She thanked him once again, and said no, that her mother was much better since she had had a cup of tea; and then they looked at each other, and without any apparent exchange of intelligence he remained, and at eleven o'clock he was still there. He was honest in saying he did not know it was so late; but he made no pretence of being sorry, and she took the blame to herself.
"I oughtn't to have let you stay," she said. "But with father gone, and all that trouble hanging over us----"