t, and a great silver bowl
on the table in the hall, and the vases in the library, were filled with
exotics. The fragrance oppressed Lillian in some subtle sort; the spirit
of the scene was so alien to the idea of festival or function; the dim
gaunt morning was of so funereal an aspect; the gathering of household
companions, gloomy, silent, expectant, into one room duly set in order,
was so suggestive, that the array of flowers and the heavy perfumed air
gave the final significant impression of douleur and doom.

At the first glimpse of dawn, Gladys had despatched a groom, well mounted
and with a fresh led horse, out on the road to descry perchance some
approach of Mr. Bayne, to afford assistance if this were needed. Hours
went by, and still there was no news, no return of the messenger. Now and
again Mrs. Briscoe sought to exchange a word with Mrs. Marable to relieve
the tension of the situation; but the elder lady was flabby with fatigue;
her altruistic capabilities had been tried to the utmost in this long
vigil and painful excitement, which were indeed unmeet for her age and
failing strength. She did not enter into the troubled prevision of
Gladys, who had been furtively watching a strange absorption that was
growing in Lillian's manner, a fevered light in her eyes. Suddenly, as if
in response to a summons, Lillian rose, and, standing tall and erect in
her long black dress, she spoke in a voice that seemed not her own, so
assured, so strong, monotonous yet distinct.

"You cruel woman," she said, as if impersonally. But Gladys perceived in
a moment that she had in mind her own arraignment, as if another were
taxing her with a misdeed. "In this bitter black night, in this furious
ice-storm, and you did not forbid it! You did not explain your need. You
summoned him to risk his life, _his life_, that he might something the
earlier offer his fallible opinion, perhaps worth no more than that bit
of stone! You would not wait till daylight--you would not wait one hour.
You cruel woman! Already you had the best of him, his heart, to throw
away at a word as if it were naught--merely a plaything, a tawdry
gaud--the best and tenderest and noblest heart that ever beat!--and for a
silly quarrel, and for your peevish vanity, you consented to humiliate
his honest pride and to hold him up to ridicule, jilted on his
wedding-day. And but that he is so brave and genuine and fine of fibre,
he would never have had the courage to hold up