twice marked the passing hour. She had never heard Mrs. Herrick
speak so flowingly nor Kerr listen so well, placing his questions nicely
to draw out the thread of her theme. Yet Flora guessed his thought must
be fixed on their approaching moment, as hers was--on the moment when
they should be ready to quit the table and Mrs. Herrick would leave them
to themselves.

It was the appearance of the aproned maid that broke their unity. The
last course was on the table, the last taste of its pungent fruit
essence on their tongues--and what was the girl's errand now? The eye of
her mistress was inquiring.

"Some one has come, Mrs. Herrick." The woman's proper formula seemed to
fail her. She looked as if she had been frightened.

"Some one?" Mrs. Herrick showed asperity. "What name?"

"He is coming in." As she spoke the girl shrank a little to one side.

With his long coat open, hanging from the armpits, with ruffled hair,
and lips apart, and from breathlessness a little smiling, Harry appeared
in the doorway. Kerr leaned forward. Mrs. Herrick did not move. She was
facing the last arrival and she was smiling more flexibly, more
naturally, than Harry; but it was Flora who found the first word.

"You! I--I thought it was Clara." She was struggling for nonchalance,
for poise, at this worst blow, so unexpected.

"Clara won't be down," Harry said, advancing. "How d'ye do, Mrs.
Herrick? How d'ye do, Kerr?"

"How d'ye do?" said the Englishman, without rising.

Flora gripped the arms of her chair to keep from springing up in sheer
nervous terror. A possible purpose in Harry's coming, that even Mrs.
Herrick's presence would not defer, shot through her mind. Was he alone?
Or were there others--men here for a fearful purpose--waiting beyond in
the hall? But Harry had turned his back upon the door behind him with a
finality that declared whatever danger had come into the house was
complete in his presence.

"I've dined, thanks," he said, but, stripping off his greatcoat,
accepted a chair and the glass of cordial Mrs. Herrick offered him. The
ruddy, hard quality of his face, were it divested of its present smile,
Flora thought, might well have frightened the maid; but, for all that,
it was not so implacable as Kerr's face confronting it. The look with
which he met the intrusion had a quality more bitter than the challenge
of an antagonist, more jealous than a mere lover's; and that bitterness,
that jealousy which was between them