“No, I have not,” said Lawrence.  “If the matter had been decided, one way or the other, I should not be here.  I have no right to trespass on your aunt’s hospitality, and I should have departed as soon as I had discovered Miss March’s sentiments in regard to me.  But I have not been able to settle the matter, at all.  I had one opportunity of seeing the lady, and that was not a satisfactory interview.  Yesterday morning, I made another attempt, but before I could get to her I sprained my ankle.  And here I am; I can not go to her, and, of course, she will not come to me.  You cannot imagine how I chafe under this harassing restraint.”

“I can imagine it very easily,” said Junius.

“The only thing I have to hope for,” said Lawrence, “is that to-morrow may be a fine day, and that the lady may come outside and give me the chance of speaking to her at this open door.”

Junius smiled grimly.  “It appears to me,” he said, “as if it were likely to rain for several days.  But now I must go into the house and see the family.  I hope you believe me, sir, when I say I am sorry to find you in your present predicament.”

“Yes,” said Lawrence, smiling, although he did not feel at all gay, “for, otherwise, I might have been finally rejected and far away.”

“If you had been rejected,” said Junius, “I should have been very glad, indeed, to have you stay with us.”

“Thank you,” said Lawrence.

“I will look in upon you again,” said Junius, as he left the room.

Lawrence’s mind, which had been in a very unpleasant state of troubled restiveness for some days, was now thrown into a sad turmoil by this arrival of Junius Keswick.  As he saw that tall and good-looking young man going up the steps of the house porch, with his valise in his hand, he clinched both his fists as they rested on the arm of his chair, and objurgated the anti-detective.

“If it had not been for that rascal,” he said to himself, “I should not have written to Keswick, and he would not have thought of coming back at this untimely moment.  The only advantage I had was a clear coast, and now that is gone.  Of course Keswick was frightened when he found I was staying in the same house with Roberta March, and hurried back to attend to his own interests.  The first thing he will do now will be to propose to her himself; and, as they have been engaged once, it is as like as not she will take him again.  If I could use this foot, I would go into the house, this minute, and have the first word with her.”  At this he rose to his feet and made a step with his sprained ankle, but the sudden pain occasioned by this action caused him to sit down again with a groan.  Lawrence Croft was not a man to do himself a physical injury which might be permanent, if such doing could possibly be avoided, and he gave up the idea of trying to go into the house.

“I tell you what it is, Letty,” said Uncle Isham, when he returned to the kitchen after having carried Lawrence’s supper to him, “dat ar Mister Croft in de offis is a gittin wuss an’ wuss in he min’, ebery day.  I neber seed a man more pow’ful glowerin’ dan he is dis ebenin.”