He cordially admired and esteemed his brown-eyed fair-haired fiancee, considered her the personification of feminine refinement and delicacy; and congratulated himself warmly on his great good fortune in winning her affection; but tender emotions found little scope for exercise in his intensely practical, busy life, which was devoted to the attainment of eminence in his profession; and the merely dynamic apparatus which did duty as his heart, had never been disturbed by any feeling sufficiently deep to quicken his calm, steady pulse.

There were times, when Leo wondered whether all accepted lovers were as undemonstrative as her own, and she would have been happier had he occasionally forgotten professional aspirations, in the charm of her presence; but her confidence in the purity and fidelity of his affection was unshaken, even by the dismal predictions of Miss Patty, who found it impossible to reconcile herself to the failure of her darling scheme, that Leo should marry her second cousin, Leighton Douglass, D.D., and devote her fortune to the advancement of his church.

To-day, as she sought pleasant work in arranging the ferns and carnations of her conservatory, her thoughts reverted to the previous evening, which Mr. Dunbar had spent with her; and she could not avoid indulging regret, that he should have allowed business affairs to interfere with their engagement for horseback riding, but her reverie was speedily interrupted by the excited tones of her aunt’s voice.

“Leo!  Leo!  Where do you hide yourself?”

“Here, Auntie, in the conservatory.”

“Oh! my child, such dreadful news!  Such a frightful tragedy!”

Pale and panting, Miss Patty ran down the arcade, and stumbled over a barricade of potted plants on the threshold of the door.

“What is the matter?  Is it my Uncle, or—­or Lennox?”

Leo sprang to her feet, and caught her aunt’s arm.

“Horrible! horrible!  General Darrington was robbed, and then most brutally murdered last night!”

“Murdered!  Can it be possible?  Murdered—­by whom?”

“How should I know?  The whole town is wild about it.  My brother is at Elm Bluff, with the body, and I shall take the carriage and drive over there at once.  Dear me; I am so nervous I can’t stand still, and my teeth chatter like a pair of castanets.”

“Perhaps there may be some mistake.  How did you hear it?”

“Your Uncle Mitchell sent a boy to tell me why he was detained.  There has been a coroner’s inquest, and of course, as an old and intimate friend of General Darrington’s, Mitchell feels he must do all he can.  Poor old gentleman!  So proud and aristocratic!  To be murdered in his own house, like any common pauper!  Positively it makes me sick.  May the Lord have mercy on his soul.”

“Amen!” murmured Leo.

“Will you go with me to Elm Bluff?”

“Oh, no!  Not for worlds.  Why should I?  Women will only be in the way; and who could desire to contemplate so horrible a spectacle?  It will merely harrow your feelings, Aunt Patty, and you can do no good.”