he air. The
endless embroidery went on, the knitting needles clicked, and a little
later in the dusk, Margaret smiled as Rene went down the garden to the
river, a towel on his arm.

"I did him good," she murmured proudly.

Later in the evening they were of one mind that it was well to keep
their engagement secret, above all, not to confide it to their relatives
or to Miss Wynne until there was some satisfactory outcome of the
serious charge which had caused Randolph to act as he had done.

XXVI

Mr. Hamilton's reply came in five days. He would come at once. De
Courval's friends, Bingham and Wynne, had heard his story, and thought
he did well to resign, while Wynne advised him to come to Merion for a
week or two. His other adviser would not have even the appearance of
flight.

"Above all," said Margaret, "go about as usual. Thou must not avoid
people, and after Mr. Hamilton comes and is gone, think of Merion if it
so please thee, or I can let thee go. Aunt Gainor was here in one of her
fine tempers yesterday. I am jealous of her, Monsieur de Courval. And
she has her suspicions."

He took her advice, and saw too easily that he was the observed of many;
for in the city he had long been a familiar personality, with his
clean-shaven, handsome face and the erect figure, which showed the
soldier's training. He was, moreover, a favorite, especially with the
older men and women, so that not all the looks he met were either from
hostile, cockaded Jacobins or from the merely curious.

Mr. Thomas Cadwalader stopped him, and said that at need he was at his
service, if he desired to call out the minister or the Secretary. Mrs.
Byrd, both curious and kind, would have him to come and tell her all
about it, which he was little inclined to do.

He took Margaret's wholesome advice, and swam and rode, and was in a
calmer state of mind, and even happy at the greetings of those in the
fencing school, where were some whom, out of his slender means, he had
helped. They told him gleefully how de Malerive had given up the
ice-cream business for a morning to quiet for a few weeks an Irish
Democrat who had said of the vicomte unpleasant things; and would he not
fence! "Yes, now," he said smiling, and would use the pistol no more.

Mr. Hamilton came as he had promised. "I must return to New York," he
said, "to-morrow. I have heard from Schmidt. He may not come very soon;
but I wrote him fully, on hearing from you. He will be sure