Answering the summons of the bell, a maid ushered him into the long drawing-room, and into the presence of the general and his daughter.  The former received North with a perceptible shade of reserve.  He knew more about the young man than he would have cared to tell his daughter, since he believed it would be better for her to make her own discoveries where North was concerned.  He had not opposed his frequent visits to Idle Hour, for he felt that if Elizabeth was interested in the young fellow opposition would only strengthen it.  Glancing at North as he greeted Elizabeth, the general admitted that whatever he might be, he was presentable, indeed good-looking, handsome.  Why hadn’t he done something other than make a mess of his life!  He wondered, too, wishing to be quite fair, if North had not been the subject of a good deal of unmerited censure, if, after all, his idleness had not been the worst thing about him.  He hoped this might be true.  Still he regretted that Elizabeth should have allowed their boy and girl friendship—­they had known each other always—­to grow into a closer intimacy.

In the minds of these two men there was absolute accord on one point.  Either would have said that Elizabeth Herbert’s beauty was a supreme endowment, and more nearly perfect than the beauty of any other woman.  She was slender, not tall, but poised and graceful with a distinction of bearing that added to her inches.  Her hair was burnished copper and her coloring the tint of warm ivory with the sunlight showing through.  North gazed at her as though he would store in his memory the vision of her loveliness.  Then they walked out to the dining-room.

The dinner was rather a somber feast.  North felt the restraint of the general’s presence; he sensed his disfavor; and with added bitterness he realized that this was his last night in Mount Hope, that the morrow would find him speeding on his way West.  He had given up everything for nothing, and now that a purpose, a hope, a great love had come to him, he must go from this place, the town of his birth, where he had become a bankrupt in both purse and reputation.

It was a relief when they returned to the drawing-room.  There the general excused himself, and North and Elizabeth were left alone.  She seated herself before the open fire of blazing hickory logs, whose light, and that of the shaded lamps, filled the long room with a soft radiance.  She had never seemed so desirable to North as now when he was about to leave her.  He stood silent, leaning against the corner of the chimneypiece, looking down on all her springlike radiance.  Usually he was neither preoccupied nor silent, but to-night he was both.  The thought that he was seeing her for the last time—­Ah, this was the price of all his folly!  At length he spoke.

“I came to-night to say good-by, Elizabeth!”

She glanced up, startled.

“To say good-by?” she repeated.

He nodded gloomily.