may come HERE first."
Opening the door she passed into the half-dark and empty hall. "Now
run!" She heard the quick rustle of Mrs. Barker's skirt die away in the
distance, the opening and shutting of a door--silence--and then turned
back into her own room.
She was none too soon. Presently she heard Barker's voice saying, "Thank
you, I can find the way," his still buoyant step on the staircase, and
then saw his brown curls rising above the railing. The light streaming
through the open door of the sitting room into the half-lit hall had
partially dazzled him, and, already bewildered, he was still more
dazzled at the unexpected apparition of the smiling face and bright eyes
of Mrs. Horncastle standing in the doorway.
"You have fairly caught us," she said, with charming composure; "but I
had half a mind to let you wander round the hotel a little longer. Come
in." Barker followed her in mechanically, and she closed the door. "Now,
sit down," she said gayly, "and tell me how you knew we were here, and
what you mean by surprising us at this hour."
Barker's ready color always rose on meeting Mrs. Horncastle, for whom
he entertained a respectful admiration, not without some fear of her
worldly superiority. He flushed, bowed, and stared somewhat blankly
around the room, at the familiar walls, at the chair from which Mrs.
Horncastle had just risen, and finally at his wife's glove, which Mrs.
Horncastle had a moment before ostentatiously thrown on the table.
Seeing which she pounced upon it with assumed archness, and pretended to
conceal it.
"I had no idea my wife was here," he said at last, "and I was quite
surprised when the man told me, for she had not written to me about it."
As his face was brightening, she for the first time noticed that his
frank gray eyes had an abstracted look, and there was a faint line of
contraction on his youthful forehead. "Still less," he added, "did I
look for the pleasure of meeting you. For I only came here to inquire
about my old partner, Demorest, who arrived from Europe a few days ago,
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