Ingelow left the room for his
morning constitutional. Miss Dane walked over, took a book, opened it,
and held it before her face a full hour without turning a leaf. The face
it screened looked darkly bitter and overcast. She was free from prison,
only to find herself in a worse captivity--fettered by a love that could
meet with no return.
The bright morning wore on; noon came. Two o'clock brought dinner and
Mr. Ingelow, breezy from his walk.
"What!" he exclaimed, looking round, "no Miriam?"
"No Miriam," said Mollie, laying down her book. "Mrs. Sharpe and I have
been quite alone--she sewing, I reading."
Mrs. Sharpe smiled to herself. She had been watching the young lady, and
surmised how much she had read.
"Why, that's odd, too," Mr. Ingelow said. "She promised to be here this
morning, and Miriam keeps her promises, I think. However, the afternoon
may bring her. And now for dinner, mesdames."
But the afternoon did not bring her. The hours wore on--Mr. Ingelow
at his easel, Mollie with her book, Susan Sharpe with her needle,
conversation desultory and lagging.
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