“Catch her looking flustered!” one woman whispered to another.  After the clock struck nine a long breath seemed to be drawn simultaneously by the company; it was quite audible.  Then came a sharp hissing whisper of wonder and consternation; then a hush, and all faces turned towards the door.  Burr Gordon, his face stern and white, stood there looking across at his mother.  She rose at once and went to him with a stately glide, and they disappeared amid a distinct buzz of curiosity that could no longer be restrained.

“They’ve gone into the parson’s study,” whispered one to another.  Some reported, upon the good authority of a neighbor’s imagination, that Parson Fair had “fallen down dead;” some that Dorothy had fainted away; some that the black woman had killed her and her father.

Meanwhile, Burr and his mother went into Parson Fair’s study.  There stood the minister by his desk, with his proudly gentle brow all furrowed, and his fine, long scholar-fingers clutching nervously at the back of his arm-chair.  He cast one glance around as the door opened and shut, then looked away, then commanded himself with an effort, and stepped forward and bowed courteously to the woman in her black satin and pearls.  Elvira Gordon looked from one to the other, and the two men followed her glances, and each waited for the other to speak.

“Where is she?” she asked, finally.

“She is up in her chamber,” replied Parson Fair, in a voice more strained with his own anxiety than it had ever been in the pulpit over the sins of his fellow-men.  “I know not what to say or do—­I never thought that daughter of mine—­she will not come—­”

Then Elvira Gordon cast a quick, sharp glance at her son, which he met with proud misery and resentment.  “It is quite true, mother,” he said.  “We have both tried, and she will not come.”

“Perhaps a woman—­” said Parson Fair.  “I wish her mother were alive,” he added, with a break in his voice.

“I will go and see her if you think it is best,” said Mrs. Gordon.  In her heart she rebelled bitterly against seeming to plead with this unwilling bride to come to her son.  Had she not felt guilty for her son, with the conviction of his own secret deflection, she would never have mounted the spiral stairs to Dorothy Fair’s chamber that night.  Parson Fair led the way, and Burr followed.  The people stood back with a kind of awed curiosity.  Some of the young girls were quite pale, and their eyes were dilated.  Folk longed to follow them up-stairs, but they did not dare.

At the door of Dorothy’s chamber crouched, like a fierce dog on guard, the great black African woman.  When the three drew near she looked up at them with a hostile roll of savage eyes and a glitter of white teeth between thick lips.  The parson advanced, and she sprang up and put her broad back against the door and rolled out defiance at him from under her burring tongue.