und Okefinokee swamp, and at last
brought him again to the margin of the broad St John's. It seemed to him
that half a lifetime had passed since he left it.

He reached East Angels in the afternoon. Cindy appeared. Yes, Mrs.
Rutherford and Mrs. Harold were both at home; they were in Mrs.
Rutherford's sitting-room up-stairs. But when she had preceded him and
opened the door of that apartment, only Aunt Katrina was there.

"Mercy, Evert! where did you come from?" she exclaimed, in a key rather
higher than her usual calm tones. It seemed to him that she looked
frightened.

"From New York, of course. You are alone? Where is Margaret?" He spoke
abruptly.

"Oh, she's _here_," responded Aunt Katrina, quickly, in a reassuring
voice.

But her emphasis told him that it might not be "here" long, it might be
some other word. Would that word be "Fernandina?"

At any rate, Margaret was not yet gone.

"What do you mean by 'here?' She's not in the room."

"She doesn't spend every moment with me; I want _some_ time for my own
reading and--and meditation. She's in the garden, or the drawing-room, I
suppose--somewhere about."

"Aunt Katrina, tell me in so many words--is she going back to Lanse?"

"Why--er--why, yes, I believe so." Aunt Katrina's voice fairly faltered.

"You have had a hand in this: you have urged her."

"Well, Evert, she's Lanse's wife, you know."

"Where is she?"

"I have told you already that I don't know."

"Not gone?" he said, with quick-returning suspicion.

"Oh dear no! What are you thinking of?"

"I'm thinking that I cannot trust either of you! When is she going,
then?"

"Well, there has been a good deal about that. Back and forth, you know;
letters and--"

"_When?_" he repeated, imperatively.

"To-morrow," answered Aunt Katrina, in almost the same tone as his own.
"How you do storm, Evert!"

But he had left the room before her words were finished.

Margaret was not in the drawing-room, she was not in the garden. He met
Pablo. "Do you know where Mrs. Harold is?" he said.

"She's in der yorrange grove, sah. I ben dar myse'f looken' arter der
place a little, as I has ter, en I see her dar." Pablo meant the old
grove--his grove; the new grove was on the other side of the house, and
was as ugly as a new grove always is. Down to this hour old Pablo had
never become satiated with the delight of working in the old grove at
his own pleasure and according to southern methods alone; poor little