“Are you going to marry Clarence?” he asked.
“I have promised,” she said simply.
Then after a long pause, seeing her father said nothing, she added, “Perhaps he was waiting for you to see me alone. I will go down to see if he is in the carriage.”
The Colonel started with her, but she pulled him back in alarm.
“You will be seen, Pa,” she cried. “How can you be so reckless?”
He stayed at the top of the passage, holding open the door that she might have light. When she reached the sidewalk, there was Ned standing beside the horses, and the carriage empty.
“Ned!”
“Yass'm, Miss Jinny.”
“Where's Mr. Clarence?”
“He done gone, Miss Tinny.”