This was more than Maggie could endure in silence.  The frank ingenuousness of her nature prevailed, and turning towards him her dark, beautiful eyes, in which tears were shining, she said:  “Forgive me, Mr. Carrollton.  I sent Gritty home on purpose to see if you would be annoyed, for I felt vexed because you would not humor my whim and meet me at the bridge.  I am sorry I caused you any uneasiness,” she continued, as she saw a shadow flit over his face.  “Will you forgive me?”

Arthur Carrollton could not resist the pleading of those lustrous eyes, nor yet refuse to take the ungloved hand she offered him; and if, in token of reconciliation, he did press it a little more fervently than Henry Warner would have thought at all necessary, he only did what, under the circumstances, it was very natural he should do.  From the first Maggie Miller had been a puzzle to Arthur Carrollton; but he was fast learning to read her—­was beginning to understand how perfectly artless she was—­and this little incident increased, rather than diminished, his admiration.

“I will forgive you, Maggie,” he said, “on one condition.  You must promise never again to experiment with my feelings in a similar manner.”

The promise was readily given, and then they proceeded on as leisurely as if at home there was no anxious grandmother vibrating between her high-backed chair and the piazza, nor yet an Anna Jeffrey watching them enviously as they came slowly up the road.

That night there came to Mr. Carrollton a letter from Montreal, saying his immediate presence was necessary there, on a business matter of some importance; and he accordingly decided to go on the morrow.

“When may we expect you back?” asked Madam Conway, as in the morning he was preparing for his journey.

“It will, perhaps, be two months at least, before I return,” said he, adding that there was a possibility of his being obliged to go immediately to England.

In the recess of the window Maggie was standing, thinking how lonely the house would be without him, and wishing there was no such thing as parting from those she liked—­even as little as she did Arthur Carrollton.

“I won’t let him know that I care, though,” she thought, and forcing a smile to her face she was about turning to bid him good-by, when she heard him tell her grandmother of the possibility there was that he would be obliged to go directly to England from Montreal.

“Then I may never see him again,” she thought; and the tears burst forth involuntarily at the idea of parting with him forever.

Faster and faster they came, until at last, fearing lest he should see them, she ran away upstairs, and, mounting to the roof, sat down behind the chimney, where, herself unobserved, she could watch him far up the road.  From the half-closed door of her chamber Anna Jeffrey had seen Maggie stealing up the tower stairs; had seen, too, that she was weeping, and, suspecting the cause, she went quietly down to the parlor to hear what Arthur Carrollton would say.  The carriage was waiting, his trunk was in its place, his hat was in his hand; to Madam Conway he said good-by, to Anna Jeffrey too; and still he lingered, looking wistfully round in quest of something which evidently was not there.