She was gowned in white, with a scarlet ribbon at her throat, and the green wall vividly accented and heightened her outline. I stood, staring like a fool for what seemed a century of heart-beats as she flashed forth there, out of what seemed a sheer depth of masonry; then she turned her head slightly, as though in disdain of me, and looked off toward the lake. I had uncovered at sight of her, and found, when I gained the broad hall at Glenarm House, that I still carried my hat.
An hour later, as I dined in solitary state, that white figure was still present before me; and I could not help wondering, though the thought angered me, whether that graceful head had been bent against the closed door of the parlor at St. Agatha's, and (if such were the fact) why Helen Holbrook, who clearly enjoyed the full confidence of her aunt, should have stooped to such a trick to learn what Miss Patricia said to me.
CHAPTER II
CONFIDENCES
When Spring grows old, and sleepy winds
Set from the South with odors sweet,
I see my love in green, cool groves,
Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.
She throws a kiss and bids me run,
In whispers sweet as roses' breath;
I know I can not win the race,
And at the end I know is death.
O race of love! we all have run
Thy happy course through groves of spring,
And cared not, when at last we lost,
For life, or death, or anything!
—Atalanta: Maurice Thompson.
Miss Patricia received me the following afternoon on the lawn at St. Agatha's where, in a cool angle of the buildings, a maid was laying the cloth on a small table.
"It is good of you to come. Helen will be here presently. She went for a walk on the shore."
"You must both of you make free of the Glenarm preserve. Don't consider the wall over there a barricade; it's merely to add to the picturesqueness of the landscape."
Miss Patricia was quite rested from her journey, and expressed her pleasure in the beauty and peace of the place in frank and cordial terms. And to-day I suspected, what later I fully believed, that she affected certain old-fashioned ways in a purely whimsical spirit. Her heart was young enough, but she liked to play at being old! Sister Theresa's own apartments had been placed at her disposal, and the house, Miss Patricia declared, was delightfully cool.
"I could ask nothing better than this. Sister Margaret is most kind in every way. Helen and I have had a peaceful twenty-four hours—the first in two years—and I feel that at last we have found safe harborage."
"Best assured of it, Miss Holbrook! The summer colony is away off there and you need see nothing of it; it is quite out of sight and sound. You have seen Annandale—the sleepiest of American villages, with a curio shop and a candy and soda-fountain place and a picture post-card booth which the young ladies of St. Agatha's patronize extensively when they are here. The summer residents are just beginning to arrive on their shore, but they will not molest you. If they try to land over here we'll train our guns on them and blow them out of the water. As your neighbor beyond the iron gate of Glenarm I beg that you will look upon me as your man-at-arms. My sword, Madam, I lay at your feet."
"Sheathe it, Sir Laurance; nor draw it save in honorable cause," she returned on the instant, and then she was grave again.
"Sister Margaret is most kind in every way; she seems wholly discreet, and has assured me of her interest and sympathy," said Miss Patricia, as though she wished me to confirm her own impression.
"There's no manner of doubt of it. She is Sister Theresa's assistant. It is inconceivable that she could possibly interfere in your affairs. I believe you are perfectly safe here in every way, Miss Holbrook. If at the end of a week your brother has made no sign, we shall be reasonably certain that he has lost the trail."
"I believe that is true; and I thank you very much."
I had come prepared to be disillusioned, to find her charm gone, but her small figure had even an added distinction; her ways, her manner an added grace. I found myself resisting the temptation to call her quaint, as implying too much; yet I felt that in some olden time, on some noble estate in England, or, better, in some storied colonial mansion in Virginia, she must have had her home in years long gone, living on with no increase of age to this present. She was her own law, I judged, in the matter of fashion. I observed later a certain uniformity in the cut of her gowns, as though, at some period, she had found a type wholly comfortable and to her liking and thereafter had clung to it. She suggested peace and gentleness and a beautiful patience; and I strove to say amusing things, that I might enjoy her rare luminous smile and catch her eyes when she gave me her direct gaze in the quick, challenging way that marked her as a woman of position and experience, who had been more given to command than to obey.
"Did you think I was never coming, Aunt Pat? That shore-path calls for more strenuous effort than I imagined, and I had to change my gown again."
Helen Holbrook advanced quickly and stood by her aunt's chair, nodding to me smilingly, and while we exchanged the commonplaces of the day, she caught up Miss Pat's hand and held it a moment caressingly. The maid now brought the tea. Miss Pat poured it and the talk went forward cheerily.
The girl was in white, and at the end of a curved bench, with a variety of colored cushions about her and the bright sward and tranquil lake beyond, she made a picture wholly agreeable to my eyes. Her hair was dead black, and I saw for the first time that its smooth line on her brow was broken by one of those curious, rare little points called widow's peak. They are not common, nor, to be sure, are they important; yet it seemed somehow to add interest to her graceful pretty head.
It was quite clear in a moment that Helen was bent on treating me rather more amiably than on the day before, while at the same time showing her aunt every deference. I was relieved to find them both able to pitch their talk in a light key. The thought of sitting daily and drearily discussing their troubles with two exiled women had given me a dark moment at the station the day before; but we were now having tea in the cheerfullest fashion in the world; and, as for their difficulties, I had no idea whatever that they would be molested so long as they remained quietly at Annandale. Miss Pat and her niece were not the hysterical sort; both apparently enjoyed sound health, and they were not the kind of women who see ghosts in every alcove and go to bed to escape the lightning.
"Oh, Mr. Donovan," said Helen Holbrook, as I put down her cup, "there are some letters I should like to write and I wish you would tell me whether it is safe to have letters come for us to Annandale; or would it be better to send nothing from here at all? It does seem odd to have to ask such a question—" and she concluded in a tone of distress and looked at me appealingly.
"We must take no risks whatever, Helen," remarked Miss Pat decisively.
"We must take no risks whatever, Helen."
"Does no one know where you are?" I inquired of Miss Patricia.