She turned her head quickly, but saw nothing.  Something the sound of receding footsteps met her ear, nothing more, but she was convinced there had been a human presence near her.  Where?  Her heart beat strangely; her blood, a moment before so chilled and stagnant, leaped through her veins like fire.  From whence arose the change?

She reached her chamber without meeting any one, and unlocking the door, rang for her attendants.  The house was in a strange confusion.  Groups were gathered in the corridors, whispering together, and some unexplained trouble seemed to have fallen upon the whole place.

After a little while, Alexandrine came in, pale and haggard.  Margie saw her white dress was damp, and her hair uncurled, as if by the weather.

“Where have you been, Alexandrine?” she asked; “and what is the matter?”

The girl turned from white to crimson.

“I have been in my room,” she replied.

“But your clothes are damp, and your hair uncurled—­”

“The air is wet, and this great house is as moist as an ice-shed,” returned the girl, hurriedly.  “It is no wonder if my hair is uncurled.  Margie, the—­the—­Mr. Linmere has not arrived.”

“Not arrived!  It must be nine o’clock.”

As she spoke, the sonorous strokes of the clock proclaiming the hour, vibrated through the house.

“We have been distracted about him for more than two hours! he should surely have been here by half-past six!  Mr. Trevlyn has sent messengers to the depot, to make inquiries, and the officekeeper thinks Mr. Linmere arrived in the six o’clock train, but is not quite positive.  Mr. Weldon went, himself, to meet the seven-thirty train, thinking perhaps he might have got detained, and would come on in the succeeding train, but he did not arrive.  And there are no more trains to-night!  Oh, Margie, isn’t it dreadful?”

Alexandrine’s manner was strangely flurried and ill at ease, and the hand she laid on Margie’s was cold as ice.  Margie scrutinized her curiously, wondering the while at her own heartless apathy.

Something had occurred to stir the composure of this usually cool, and self-possessed woman fearfully.  But what it was Margie could not guess.

Mr. Trevlyn burst into the room, pale and exhausted.

“It is no use!” he said, throwing himself into a chair, “no use to try to disguise the truth!  There will be no wedding to-night, Margie!  The bridegroom has failed to come!  The scoundrel!  If I were ten years younger, I would call him out for this insult!”

Margie laid her hand on his arm, a strange, new feeling of vague relief pervading her.  It was as if some great weight, under which her slender strength had wearied and sank, were rolled off from her.

“Compose yourself, dear guardian, he may have been unavoidably detained.  Some business—­”

“Business on his wedding-day!  No, Margie! there is something wrong somewhere.  He is either playing us false—­confound him!—­or he has met with some accident!  By George! who knows but he has been waylaid and murdered!  The road from here to the depot, though short, is a lonely one, with woods on either side!  And Mr. Linmere carries always about his person enough valuables to tempt a desperate character.”