“And was he really sick?” she demanded.

“She’s later than usual this trip,” continued Ellis, pursuing his thought.  “She was due about five o’clock.”

Miss Pemberton, under cover of the darkness, smiled a fine smile, which foreboded ill for some one.  When they joined the party on the piazza, the major had come up and was saying that it was time to go.  He had been engaged in conversation, for most of the evening, with General Belmont and several other gentlemen.

“Here comes the general now.  Let me see.  There are five of us.  The general has offered me a seat in his buggy, and Tom can go with you-all.”

The general came up and spoke to the ladies.  Tom murmured his thanks; it would enable him to make up a part of the delightful evening he had missed.

When Mrs. Carteret had taken the rear seat, Clara promptly took the place beside her.  Ellis and Delamere sat in front.  When Delamere, who had offered to drive, took the reins, Ellis saw that his hands were shaking.

“Give me the lines,” he whispered.  “Your nerves are unsteady and the road is not well lighted.”

Delamere prudently yielded the reins.  He did not like Ellis’s tone, which seemed sneering rather than expressive of sympathy with one who had been suffering.  He wondered if the beggar knew anything about his illness.  Clara had been acting strangely.  It would have been just like Ellis to have slandered him.  The upstart had no business with Clara anyway.  He would cheerfully have strangled Ellis, if he could have done so with safety to himself and no chance of discovery.

The drive homeward through the night was almost a silent journey.  Mrs. Carteret was anxious about her baby.  Clara did not speak, except now and then to Ellis with reference to some object in or near the road.  Occasionally they passed a vehicle in the darkness, sometimes barely avoiding a collision.  Far to the north the sky was lit up with the glow of a forest fire.  The breeze from the Sound was deliciously cool.  Soon the last toll-gate was passed and the lights of the town appeared.

Ellis threw the lines to William, who was waiting, and hastened to help the ladies out.

“Good-night, Mr. Ellis,” said Clara sweetly, as she gave Ellis her hand.  “Thank you for a very pleasant evening.  Come up and see us soon.”

She ran into the house without a word to Tom.

XVII

THE SOCIAL ASPIRATIONS OF CAPTAIN McBANE

It was only eleven o’clock, and Delamere, not being at all sleepy, and feeling somewhat out of sorts as the combined results of his afternoon’s debauch and the snubbing he had received at Clara’s hands, directed the major’s coachman, who had taken charge of the trap upon its arrival, to drive him to the St. James Hotel before returning the horses to the stable.  First, however, the coachman left Ellis at his boarding-house, which was near by.  The two young men parted with as scant courtesy as was possible without an open rupture.