Page:The New Penelope.djvu/77



"It will be breakfast, I suppose. By the way, I must go and put a note under Jane's door, telling her not to have it before half-past nine. There will be a letter from Benton, by the morning mail. Good night; or, good morning, and sweet slumber."

"God be with you," I responded, and in twenty minutes was sleeping soundly.

Not so my hostess, it seems, for when we met again at our ten o'clock breakfast, she looked pale and distraught, and acknowledged that she had not been able to compose herself after our long talk. The morning was clear and sunny, but owing to the storm of the night, the mail was late getting in, a circumstance which gave her, as I thought, a degree of uneasiness not warranted by so natural a delay.

"You know I told you," she said, trying to laugh off her nervousness, "that something was going to happen!"

"It would be a strange condition of things where nothing did happen," I answered; and just then the horn of the mail-carrier sounded, and the lumbering four-horse coach rattled down the street in sight of our windows.

"There," I said, "is your U. S. M. safe and sound, road-agents and land-slides to the contrary and of no effect."

Very soon our letters were brought us, and my hostess, excusing herself, retired to her room to read hers. Two hours later she sent for me to come to her. I found her lying with a wet handkerchief folded over her forehead and eyes. A large and thick letter laid half open upon a table beside the bed.

"Read that," she said, without uncovering her eyes. When I had read the letter, "My dear friend," I said, "what are you going to do? I hope, after all, this may be good news."

"What can I do? What a strange situation!"

"You will wish to see him, I suppose? 'Arthur Greyfield.'