“In course I do,” answered the negro, holding up both hands in amazement, “but what sent you here this dark, unairthly night?”

“Business with your master,” and then suddenly remembering that among her own race Aunt Martha was accounted an intolerable gossip, she began to wish she had not come.

But it could not now be helped, and turning away, she walked slowly down the avenue, wondering what the result would be.  Again they were in motion, she and Durward, who followed until he saw her safe home, and then, glad that no one had seen her but himself, he retraced his steps, pondering on the mystery which he could not fathom.  After ’Lena left Sunnyside, a misty rain came on, and by the time she reached her home, her long riding-dress was wet and drizzled, the feathers on her cap were drooping, and to crown all, as she was crossing the hall with stealthy step, she came suddenly upon her aunt, who, surprised at her appearance, demanded of her where she had been.  But ’Lena refused to tell, and in quite a passion Mrs. Livingstone laid the case before her husband.

“Lena had been off that dark, rainy night, riding somewhere with somebody, she wouldn’t tell who, but she (Mrs. Livingstone) most knew if was Durward, and something must be done.”

Accordingly, next day; when they chanced to be alone, Mr. Livingstone took the opportunity of questioning ’Lena, who dared not disobey him, and with many tears she confessed the whole, saying that “if it were wrong she was very sorry.”

“You acted foolishly, to say the least of it,” answered her uncle, adding, dryly, that he thought she troubled herself altogether too much about Anna, who seemed happy and contented.

Still he was ill at ease.  ’Lena’s fears disturbed him, and for many days he watched his daughter narrowly, admitting to himself that there was something strange about her.  But possibly all engaged girls acted so; his wife said they did; and hating anything like a scene, he concluded to let matters take their course, half hoping, and half believing, too, that something would occur to prevent the marriage.  What it would be, or by what agency it would be brought about, he didn’t know, but he resolved to let ’Lena alone, and when his wife insisted upon his “lecturing her soundly for meddling,” he refused, venturing even to say, that, “she hadn’t meddled.”

Meantime a new idea had entered ’Lena’s mind.  She would write to Mr. Everett.  There might yet be some mistake; she had read of such things in stories, and it could do no harm.  Gradually as she wrote, hope grew strong within her, and it became impressed upon her that there had been some deep-laid, fiendish plot.  If so, she dared not trust her letter with old Caesar, who might be bribed by his mistress.  And how to convey it to the office was now the grand difficulty.  As if fortune favored her plan, Durward, that very afternoon, called at Maple Grove, being as he said, on his way to Frankfort.