I did not care at all, and feeling warm with dancing, did not dread what I had not yet felt.  I pulled my light cloak around me, and only longed for the carriage to arrive.  But after we had started and were about forty rods from the door, quite out of the light of the little tavern, just within a grove of locust-trees (the moon was under clouds), Richard’s voice called out to Kilian to stop, and coming up to the side of the carriage, said, “Put this around you, Pauline, you haven’t got enough.”  He put something around my shoulders which felt very warm and comfortable:  I believe I said, Thank you, though I am not at all sure, and Kilian drove on rapidly.

By-and-by, when I began to feel a little chilly, I drew it together round my throat:  the air was like November, and, August though it was, there was a white frost that night.  I was frightened when I found what I had about my shoulders.  It was Richard’s coat.  I called to Kilian to stop a moment, I wanted to speak to Richard.  But when we stopped, the carriage in which he was to drive was just behind us—­and some one in it said, Richard had walked.  He had not come back after he ran out to speak to us—­must have struck across the fields and gone ahead.  And Richard walked home, five miles, that night! the only way to save himself from the deadly chill of the keen air, without his coat.

When we drove into the gate, at home, I stooped eagerly forward to get a sight of the house through the trees.  There was a light burning in the room over mine:  that was all I wanted to know, and with a sigh of relief I sank back.

When we went into the hall, I remembered to hang Richard’s coat upon a rack there, and then ran to my room.  I could not get any news of Mr. Langenau, and could not hear how the day had gone with him:  could only take the hope that the sight of the little lamp conveyed.

CHAPTER XV.

I SHALL HAVE SEEN HIM.

     Go on, go on: 
     Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserved
     All tongues to talk their bitterest.

     Winter’s Tale.

Of course, the night was entirely sleepless after such, a day.  I was over-tired, and the coffee would have been fatal to rest in any case.  I tossed about restlessly till three o’clock, and then fell into a heavy sleep.

The sun was shining into the room, and I heard the voices of people on the lawn when I awoke.  When I went down, after a hurried and nervous half-hour of dressing, I found the morning, apparently, half gone, and the breakfast-table cleared.

Mary Leighton, with a croquet mallet in her hand, was following Kilian through the hall to get a drink of water.  She made a great outcry at me and my appearance.

“What a headache you must have,” she cried.  “But ah! think what you’ve missed, dear!  The tutor has been down at breakfast, or rather at the breakfast-table, for he didn’t eat a thing.  He is a, little paler than he was at dinner day before yesterday—­and he’s gone up-stairs; and we’ve voted that we hope he’ll stay there, for he depresses us just to look at him.”