A handsome carriage, with prancing gray horses, in a silver-mounted harness, with liveried footman, suddenly drew up at the curbstone, and a brilliant face flushed on him from the window.
"Oh, Jesse, what a surprise! How do you do? Won't you look in our box and bring me out my mail?" cried Roma Clarke gushingly.
There was nothing for it but obedience. Jesse came out to her with two letters and a paper, and as she took them, she threw open the carriage door, urging sweetly:
"Come home with me, do, and see papa and mamma. They will be so glad to see you. Poor papa has been ill of a fever, and is just convalescing."
He was in a reckless mood. He accepted the invitation and went home with her, but she did not find him a very congenial companion. He ignored her coquettish attempts to return to their old footing.
"Not at all. I am glad to be your friend, if you will permit me," he replied courteously.
"Friend!" Roma cried, in an indescribable tone.
He ignored the reproach, and said calmly:
"Tell me all that has happened since I went back to Boston. Who are married and who are dead?"
"No one that you know," replied Roma, and she never guessed what a thrill of joy the words sent to his heart.
He was glad. He could not help it, that Malcolm Dean had not married Liane yet. He was yearning for news of her, yet he knew better than to ask Roma for it. He knew it would only make her angry and jealous.
While he was alone in the drawing room, Roma having gone to apprise her parents of his arrival, he was startled to see Dolly Dorr sidle in, dressed in a dark-gray gown, with a maid's white cap and apron.
Dolly colored and hung her head, muttering:
"You're surprised to see me here as Miss Clarke's maid."
"Yes," he replied frankly; then a sudden thought came to him, and he added: "And your pretty friend, Miss Lester? Is she at Cliffdene also?"
"Where, then?" he asked eagerly, with a painful curiosity.
"Don't you know?" cried Dolly pertly, with her flaxen head on one side, like a bird, and he answered quickly:
Dolly smoothed down her white apron with her little hands, and, glancing at him sidewise with her bright blue eyes, returned indignantly:
"Then, if you don't know, I can tell you. I used to like Liane, but I despise her now. That beauty prize made a fool of the girl, and turned her so silly no one liked her any more. She spent all that money for gaudy clothes and cheap jewelry, trying to entrap that artist, Mr. Dean. She was crazy about him, and didn't mind everybody knowing it, either. So at last she went chasing off to some city after him, and I don't know what became of her then, and I don't care, for every one says she must have gone straight to the bad."