Then a latch clicked softly, the hinges of a shutter whined, and the startled young woman found herself staring up into the face of Mrs. Gosnold--a pallid oval against the dark background of an unlighted window not two feet above Sally's head.
She gasped, but respected the admonition of a finger pressed lightly upon the lady's smiling lips.
"S-s-s-sh!" said Mrs. Gosnold mysteriously, with cautious glances right and left.
"There's no one here," Sally assured her in tones appropriately guarded. "You've been listening--" Mrs. Gosnold nodded with a mischievous twinkle: "I have that!"
"Something--not much--not enough. If you had only been a few minutes later. . ."
"I'm sorry, but I've been looking for you everywhere. Please, may I come in and tell you something?"
"It's very important--something you ought to know at once."
"Oh, my dear!" the woman sighed with genuine regret: "I know already far more than I care to know!"
"Not now, I say. I've been too frequently and too long away from my guests as it is. I'll have to show myself for a little while. Then, come to my room in half an hour."
"Yes, and don't be late. Now do run along and have a good time."
The shutter was drawn gently to, and Sally, with an embittered smile for the unconscious irony of that parting injunction, moved slowly on toward the front of the house.
But it was true that she felt a little less disconsolate now than she had two minutes ago; after all, it seemed, she wasn't altogether friendless and forsaken; and as for those doubts and questions which so perplexed her, they would all be resolved and answered once she had opportunity to lay them, together with the story of last night, before the judgment of her benefactress. . . .
Still, if she reckoned confidently upon her hostess, she reckoned not wisely without her host, whose mask to-night was that of a sardonic destiny. And when a tentative venture into the throngs on the veranda had been discouraged by the spirited advances of a forward young Cavalier who chose to consider his honour piqued, first by her demure Quaker garb, then by her unresponsiveness, Sally was glad enough to fall back upon the comparative quiet and solitude of the moon-drenched gardens. Whereupon her destiny grinned a heartless grin and arranged to throw her to the lions that, all unsuspected, raged in the maiden bosom of Mercedes Pride.