It was after
the hour of ten, but the girl lingered a little after she had executed
that mission; she stopped again in the door, indecisively worrying her
lip with small teeth, when she finally turned to depart.
"We are very sorry that Mr. O'Mara could not come," she hesitated. "I
had promised both Garry and Archie Wickersham that he would be down."
The older woman nodded and accepted the statement for what it was--a
question which the girl's eyes failed to conceal.
"We haven't heard from him since he went back into camp," she answered.
"He, no doubt, has been unable to get away."
Barbara turned without replying and passed out, less airily than she
had entered. But Miss Sarah's eyes were no longer disappointed as she
again took her place at a window. And a second later, when she had
drawn back suddenly into the room with a muffled exclamation, her
brother was astonished at her beaming face. A moment earlier he would
have sworn that it was only wistful, but before she went upstairs,
exclaiming still further at the lateness of the hour, it began to look
more than a little like veritable triumph to him.
Barbara Allison recrossed the lawn very slowly that night; she retraced
her steps with head bent, the fall of her slippered feet muffled by the
carpet of thick, unfrosted grass. Vaguely troubled, vaguely disturbed
at herself for her inability to analyze that strange mood which, twice
in the last few nights, had sent her with aching throat and wet cheeks
into Miriam's room, she was within arm's length of the dark figure in
the hedge gap through which she had just come, before she was aware of
its presence.
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