A little after nine the Roselands carriage was announced; and the doctor and Ella took their departure, Edward and Zoe accompanying them to the outer door.

The sky was black with clouds, and the wind roaring through the trees on the lawn.

“We are going to have a heavy storm.  I think,” remarked Arthur, glancing upward:  “there is not a star to be seen, and the wind blows almost a gale.  I hope no patient of mine will want the doctor very badly to-night,” he added with a slight laugh.  “Step in out of the wind, cousin Zoe, or you may be the very one to send for me.”

Doing as directed, “No, indeed,” she said:  “I’m sure I couldn’t have the heart to call anybody up out of a warm bed to face such a cutting wind as this.”

“No, no; never hesitate when there is a real necessity,” he returned, speaking from his seat in the carriage, where he had already taken his place beside his sister, whom Edward had handed in.  “Good-night, and hurry in, both of you, for my sake if not for your own.”

But they lingered a moment till the carriage turned, and drove swiftly down the avenue.

“I am so glad they came,” remarked Zoe, as Edward shut the door and locked it for the night.

“Yes,” he said:  “they added a good deal to the pleasure of the evening.  As we couldn’t be alone together, three guests were more acceptable than one.”

“Decidedly; and that one was delighted, I’m sure, to have an opportunity to exercise her conversational gifts for the benefit of a single man instead of a married one.”

“Zoe, love, don’t allow yourself to grow bitter and sarcastic,” Edward said, turning toward her, laying a hand lightly, affectionately, upon her shoulder, and gazing down into her eyes with a look of grave concern.

She colored under it, and turned away with a pout that almost spoiled the beauty of her fair face.  She was more than ever impatient to be rid of their self-invited guest.

“She always sets Ned to scolding me,” was the bitter thought in her heart as she went slowly back to the parlor, where they had left Miss Deane, Edward following, sighing inwardly at the change in his darling always wrought by that unwelcome presence in the house.

“How the wind roars down the chimney!” Miss Deane remarked as her host and hostess re-entered the room, where she was comfortably seated in an easy-chair beside the glowing grate.  “I fear to-morrow will prove a stormy day; but in that case I shall feel all the more delighted with my comfortable quarters here,—­all the more grateful to you, Mr. Travilla, for saving me from a long detention in one of those miserable little country taverns, where I should have died of ennui.”

“You seem kindly disposed, my dear madam, to make a great deal of a small service,” returned Edward gallantly.

But Zoe said not a word.  She stood gazing into the fire, apparently lost in thought; but the color deepened on her cheek, and a slight frown contracted her brows.