"Very well, Lizzie, that will do. You may go and get your own things
unpacked. We shan't return to New York for several days yet."

"You've heard from Mr. Straker, of course, Miss Redmond?"

"No, but I have written to him, explaining everything. Why?"

"Oh, nothing; only when I sent him word that I had heard from you, he
said at first that he was coming here with me. Some business prevented
him, but he must have telegraphed."

"Maybe he has; but it takes some time, evidently, for a hidden person
to be discovered in Ilion."

As soon as the words were off her lips, Agatha realized that she had
made a slip. One has to look sharp when talking to a sophisticated
maid.

"But were you hiding, Miss Redmond?" Lizzie artlessly inquired.

"Oh, no, Lizzie; don't be silly. The telegram probably went wrong;
telegrams often do."

"Not when Mr. Straker sends them," proffered Lizzie. "But if his
telegrams have gone wrong, you may count on his coming down here
himself. He is much worried over the rehearsals, which begin early in
the month, he said. And he got the full directions you sent me for
coming here; he would have them."

Agatha knew her manager's pertinacity when once on the track of an
object. Moreover, the humor of the situation passed from her mind,
leaving only a vivid impression of the trouble and worry which were
sure to follow such a serious breaking up of well established plans.
She was rarely capricious, even under vexation, but she yielded to a
caprice at this moment, and one, moreover, that was very unjust toward
her much-tried manager. The thought of that man bursting in upon her
in the home that had been the fastidious Hercules Thayer's, in the
midst of her anxiety and sorrow over James Hambleton, was intolerable.

"If Mr. Straker should by any chance follow me here, you must tell him
that I can not see him," she said, and departed, leaving Lizzie wrapped
in righteous indignation.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed, after her mistress had disappeared.
"Can't see him, after coming all this way! And into a country like
this, too, where there's only one bath-tub, and you fill that from a
pump in the yard!"

CHAPTER XVI

A FIGHTING CHANCE

The dining-room of the old red house was cool, and fragrant from the
blossoming heliotrope bed below its window. The twilight, which is
long in eastern Maine, shed a soft glow over the old mahogany and
silver, and an equally soft and becoming radia