They had risen from the table; and as they passed through the long reception-room, which stretched between the dining-room and the wide front hall, Abijah brought the information that Mr. Gershom awaited the Governor in the library.

“I shall probably be kept there most of the afternoon,” said Vetch, and she could see that his regret was not assumed.  “The next time you come I hope I shall have better luck.”  Then he hurried off to his appointment, while Corinna stopped at the foot of the staircase and followed with her gaze the slender balustrade of mahogany.  “If they had only left everything as it was!” she thought; and then she said aloud:  “It is so lovely out of doors.  Get your hat and we’ll walk awhile in the Square.  I can talk to you better there, and I want to talk to you seriously.”

After the girl had disappeared up the quaint flight of stairs, Corinna stood gazing meditatively at the bar of sunlight over the front door.  She was thinking of what she should say to Patty—­how could she possibly warn the girl without wounding her?—­and it was very gradually that she became aware of raised voices in the library and the hard, short sound of words that beat like hail into her consciousness.

“I tell you we can put it over all right if you will only have the sense to keep your hands off!” stormed Gershom in a tone that he was trying in vain to subdue.

“Are you sure they will strike?”

“Dead sure.  You may bet your bottom dollar on that.  We can tie up every road in this state within twenty-four hours after the order goes out—­”

Arousing herself with a start, Corinna opened the door and went out.  She could not have helped hearing what Gershom had said; and after all this was nothing more than a repetition of the plain facts that Vetch had already confided to her.  But why, she wondered, did they persist in holding their conferences at the top of their voices?

In a few minutes Patty came down, wearing a sailor hat which made her look more than ever like an attractive boy; and they descended the steps together, and strolled past the fountain of the white heron to the gate in front of the house.  Turning to the left as they entered the Square, they walked slowly down the wide brick pavement, which trailed by the library and a larger fountain, to the dingy business street beyond the iron fence at the foot of the hill.  As they went by, a woman, who was feeding the squirrels from one of the benches, lifted her face to stare at them curiously, and something vaguely familiar in her features caused Corinna to pause and glance back.  Where had she seen her before?  And how ill, how hopelessly stricken, the haggard face looked under the thick mass of badly dyed hair.  The next minute she remembered that the woman had lodged for a week or two above the old print shop, and that only yesterday Stephen had asked about her.  Poor creature, what a life she must have had to have wrecked her so utterly.