“Sylvia has left the house.  Keep an eye out for her; she told me
     nothing.”

Sylvia found consolation and courage in the cold night air; her old friends the stars, whose names she had learned before she knew her letters, did not leave her comfortless.  They had unconsciously contributed to her gift for seeing life in long vistas.  “When you are looking at the stars,” Professor Kelton used to say, “you are not thinking of yourself.”  It was not of herself that Sylvia was thinking.

She prolonged her walk, gathering strength as the exercise warmed her blood, planning what she meant to do, even repeating to herself phrases she meant to use.  So it happened that Mrs. Owen’s messenger had found Dan at the State House and delivered the note, and that Dan, called from a prolonged conference with Ramsay, saw Sylvia’s unmistakable figure as she reached the top of the stairway, watched her making inquiries of a lounger, saw men staring at her.  It crossed his mind that she was seeking him, and he started toward her; but she had stopped again to question one of the idlers in the hall.  He saw her knock at a door and knew it was Bassett’s room—­a room that for years had been set apart for the private councils of the senator from Fraser.  As Sylvia knocked, several men came out, as though the interruption had terminated an interview.  The unveiled face of the tall, dark girl called for a second glance; it was an odd place for a pretty young woman to be seeking Morton Bassett.  They looked at each other and grinned.

A single lamp on a table in the middle of the high-ceilinged room shed a narrow circle of light that deepened the shadows of the walls.  Bassett, standing by a window, was aware of a lighter step than was usual in this plotting chamber.  He advanced toward the table with his hands in his pockets, waited till Sylvia was disclosed by the lamp, stopped abruptly, stared at her with eyes that seemed not to see her.  Then he placed a chair for her, muttering:—­

“I thought you would come.”

It seemed to her that a sigh broke from him, hidden by the scraping of the chair across the bare floor.  He crossed and recrossed the floor several times, as though now that she had come he had dismissed her from his thoughts.  Then as he passed near her with slow, heavy step she spoke.

“I came to talk to you, Mr. Bassett.  Please turn on the other lights.”

“Pardon me,” he said; and she heard his fingers fumbling for the switch by the door.  In a moment the room was flooded from the chandelier overhead, and he returned, and sat down by the table without looking at her.

“I shouldn’t have come here, but I knew of no other way.  It seemed best to see you to-night.”

“It’s all right,” he replied indifferently.