The March day darkened slowly down. The sun fell low and dropped out of sight behind the bright, frozen river, in a glory of crimson and purple.
The hues of the sunset died, the evening star shone steel-blue and bright in the night-sky, and the two girls stood by the window watching when the gentlemen returned. There was just light enough left to see them plainly as they drew near the house, their skates slung over their arms; but Mr. George Howard came in for very little of their regards.
"Handsome fellow!" said Miss Howard, her eyes sparkling.
"Who?" said Rose, carelessly, as if her heart was not beating time to the word. "Reginald?"
"Yes; he is the handsomest man I ever saw."
Rose laughed--a rather forced laugh, though.
"Don"t fall in love with my handsome brother-in-law, Em. Kate won"t like it."
"They are to be married next June, are they not?" asked Emily, not noticing the insinuation, save by a slight colour, which the twilight hid.
"So they say."
"They will be a splendid-looking pair. George and all the gentlemen say that she is the only really beautiful woman they ever saw."
"Tastes differ," said Rose with a shrug. "I don"t think so. She is too pale, and proud, and cold, and too far up in the clouds altogether. She ought to go and be a nun; she would make a splendid lady-abbess."
"She will make a splendid Mrs. Stanford."
"Who?" said Mr. Stanford himself, sauntering in. "You, Miss Howard?"
"No; another lady I know of. What kind of a time had you skating?"
"Capital," replied her brother; "for an Englishman, Stanford knocks everything. Hallo, Rose! who"d have thought it?"
Rose emerged from the shadow of the window curtains, and shook hands carelessly with Master George.
"I drove over for her after you went," said his sister, "come, there"s the dinner-bell, and Mr. Stanford looks hungry."
"And is hungry," said Mr. Stanford, giving her his arm. "I shall astonish Mrs. Howard by my performance this evening."
They were not a very large party--Mr. and Mrs. Howard, their son and daughter, Mr. Stanford and Rose--but they were a very merry one. Mr.
Stanford had been in India once, three years ago, and told them wonderful stories of tiger hunts, and Hindoo girls, and jungle adventures, and Sepoy warfare, until he carried his audience away from the frozen Canadian land to the burning sun and tropical splendours and perils of far-off India. Then, after dinner, when Mr. Howard, Senior, went to his library to write letters, and Mrs. Howard dozed in an easy-chair by the fire, there was music, and sparkling chit-chat, racy as the bright Moselle at dinner, and games at cards, and fortune-telling by Mr. Howard, Junior; and it was twelve before Rose thought it half-past ten.
"I must go," said Rose, starting up. "I had no idea it was so late. I must go at once."
The two young ladies went upstairs for Miss Danton"s wraps. When they descended, the sleigh was waiting, and all went out together. The bright March day had ended in a frosty, starlit, windless night. A tiny moon glittered sparkling overhead, and silvering the snowy ground.
"Oh, what a night!" cried Emily Howard. "You may talk about your blazing India, Mr. Stanford, but I would not give our own dear snow-clad Canada for the wealth of a thousand Indies. Good-night, darling Rose, and pleasant dreams."
Miss Howard kissed her. Mr. Howard came over, and made an attempt to do the same.
"Good-night, darling Rose, and dream of me."
Rose"s answer was a slap, and then Reginald was beside her, and they were driving through the luminous dusk of the winter moonlight.
"You may stop at the gate, my good fellow," said Mr. Stanford to the driver; "the night is fine--we will walk the rest of the way--eh, Rose?"
Rose"s answer was a smile, and they were at the gates almost immediately. Mr. Stanford drew her hand within his arm, and they sauntered slowly, very slowly, up the dark, tree-shaded avenue.
"How gloomy it is here!" said Rose, clinging to his arm with a delicious little shiver; "and it is midnight, too. How frightened I should be alone!"
"Which means you are not frightened, being with me. Miss Rose, you are delightful!"
"Interpret it as you please. What should you say if the ghost were to start out from these grim black trees and confront us?"
"Say? Nothing. I would quietly faint in your arms. But this is not the ghost"s walk. Wasn"t it in the tamarack avenue old Margery saw it?"
"Let us go there!"
"It is too late," said Rose.
"No it is not. There is something delightfully novel in promenading with a young lady at the witching hour of midnight, when graveyards yawn, and gibbering ghosts in winding-sheets cut up cantrips before high heaven.
Come."
"But Mr. Stanford--"
"Reginald, I tell you. You promised, you know."
"But really Reginald, it is too late. What if we were seen?"
"Nonsense! Who is to see us! And if they do, haven"t brothers and sisters a right to walk at midnight as well as noonday if they choose?
Besides, we may see the spectre of Danton Hall, and I would give a month"s pay for the sight any time."
They entered the tamarack walk as he spoke--bright enough at the entrance, where the starlight streamed in, but in the very blackness of darkness farther down.
"How horribly dismal!" cried Rose, clinging to him more closely than ever. "A murder might be committed here, and no one be the wiser."
"A fit place for a ghostly promenade. Spectre of Danton, appear! Hist!
What is that?"
Rose barely suppressed a shriek. He put his hand over her mouth, and drew her silently into the shadow.
As if his mocking words had evoked them, two figures entered the tamarack walk as he spoke.
The starlight showed them plainly--a man and a woman--the woman wrapped in a shawl, leaning on the man"s arm, and both walking very slowly, talking earnestly.
"No ghosts those," whispered Reginald Stanford. "Be quiet, Rose; we are in for an adventure."
"I ought to know that woman"s figure," said Rose, in the same low tone.
"Look! Don"t you?"
"By--George! It can"t be--Kate!"
"It is Kate; and who is the man, and what does it mean?"