102
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
ful! Is it a dream? Oh frightful, frightful! Stanley,
Stanley, it would be mercy to kill me," she broke out
again.
"Now, Radie, listen to reason, and don't make a noise;
you know we agreed, you must go, and I can't go with
you."
Lake was cooler by this time, and his sister more excited
than before they went out.
"I used to be brave; my courage I think is gone; but
who'd have imagined what's before me?"
Stanley walked to the window and opened the shutter a
little. He forgot how dark it was. The moon had gone
down. He looked at his watch, and then at Rachel. She
was sitting, and in no calmer state; serene enough in at-
titude, but the terribly wild look was unchanged. He
looked at his watch again, and held it to his ear, and con-
sulted it once more before he placed the tiny gold disk
again in his pocket.
"This won't do," he muttered.
With one of the candles in his hand he went out and
made a hurried, peeping exploration, and soon, for the
rooms were quickly counted in Redman's Farm, he found
her chamber, small, neat, simplex mimditiis. Bright
and natty were the chintz curtains, and the little toilet set
out, not inelegantly, and her pet piping-goldfinch asleep
on his perch, with his bit of sugar between the wires of
his cage; her pillow so white and unpressed, with its little
edging of lace. Were slumbers sweet as of old ever to
know it mere? What dreams were henceforward to haunt
it? Shadows were standing about that lonely bed
already.
When he came back to the drawing-room, a toilet bottle
of eau de cologne in his hand, with her lace handkerchief
he bathed her temples and forehead. There was nothing