The evening advanced.  The shadows lengthened.  The waters of the lake grew pitchy black.  The gliding of the ghostly swans became rare and more rare.  The elders of the party thought of the drive home.  The juniors (excepting Captain Newenden) began to flag at the dance.  Little by little the comfortable attractions of the house—­tea, coffee, and candle-light in snug rooms—­resumed their influence.  The guests abandoned the glade; and the fingers and lungs of the musicians rested at last.

Lady Lundie and her party were the first to send for the carriage and say farewell; the break-up of the household at Windygates on the next day, and the journey south, being sufficient apologies for setting the example of retreat.  In an hour more the only visitors left were the guests staying at Swanhaven Lodge.

The company gone, the hired waiters from Kirkandrew were paid and dismissed.

On the journey back the silence of Bishopriggs created some surprise among his comrades.

“I’ve got my ain concerns to think of,” was the only answer he vouchsafed to the remonstrances addressed to him.  The “concerns” alluded to, comprehended, among other changes of plan, his departure from Kirkandrew the next day—­with a reference, in case of inquiries, to his convenient friend at the Cowgate, Edinburgh.  His actual destination—­to be kept a secret from every body—­was Perth.  The neighborhood of this town—­as stated on the authority of her own maid—­was the part of Scotland to which the rich widow contemplated removing when she left Swanhaven in two days’ time.  At Perth, Bishopriggs knew of more than one place in which he could get temporary employment—­and at Perth he determined to make his first anonymous advances to Mrs. Glenarm.

The remainder of the evening passed quietly enough at the Lodge.

The guests were sleepy and dull after the excitement of the day.  Mrs. Glenarm retired early.  At eleven o’clock Julius Delamayn was the only person left up in the house.  He was understood to be in his study, preparing an address to the electors, based on instructions sent from London by his father.  He was actually occupied in the music-room—­now that there was nobody to discover him—­playing exercises softly on his beloved violin.

At the trainer’s cottage a trifling incident occured, that night, which afforded materials for a note in Perry’s professional diary.

Geoffrey had sustained the later trial of walking for a given time and distance, at his full speed, without showing any of those symptoms of exhaustion which had followed the more serious experiment of running, to which he had been subjected earlier in the day.  Perry, honestly bent—­though he had privately hedged his own bets—­on doing his best to bring his man in good order to the post on the day of the race, had forbidden Geoffrey to pay his evening visit to the house, and had sent him to bed earlier than usual.  The trainer was alone, looking over his own written rules, and considering what modifications he should introduce into the diet and exercises of the next day, when he was startled by a sound of groaning from the bedroom in which his patron lay asleep.