At the sound of that low, slightly tremulous voice, O'Hara turned reluctantly to the girl beside him. Toward her when she spoke he felt only gentleness and pity, but he dreaded what she might say, feeling a sort of personal shame in her irrationality.
'I have no anger with you, little lady,' he answered kindly.
'Ill pleased, then. Is it because I have told you nothing of my story? One and another person I have told, but they had no-no understanding — '
She broke off, hesitating, and O'Hara groaned inwardly, thinking, 'And how should they understand? Poor lass, only God understands foolishness!'
'But you are not as others; you will believe, for you are great and strong and noble, and, moreover, you are bound to me by the Golden Thread.'
Colin started.
'Tell me nothing!' he broke in hastily. Then, seeing that she shrank away with a little hurt motion, he added, 'We've no time just now for the length of your tale. Do you just wait, little lady, till we are safe at home with my sister. It's but a few minutes now till we get off the train.'
'I will wait,' she answered with a submissive sigh, and indeed there was no more time for talk. They were then entering the trainshed at the city terminal, and shortly thereafter Colin was hurrying his charge toward the gates and through them, thankful for the late hour and bad weather.
But there were few people about on the train floor, and in any case his fears proved needless. As they went she clung tightly to his arm, shrinking against him.
Green Gables at last, and as Colin, standing in the shelter of the
Colin, full of the trouble and excitement of the past few hours, had clean forgotten that by Rhodes he was still supposed to be several thousand miles away, and it was a moment before he could see any reason for his brother-in-law's thunderstruck amazement.
Between that and genuine delight at finding him there, Rhodes did not notice the girl standing so silent at O'Hara's side until the latter, protesting that explanation must come later, called attention to this mysterious companion.
'Little lady,' said he, drawing her forward, 'here is a good friend of mine who will be a friend to you, too, I am thinking. This is Mr. Anthony Rhodes, the husband of my sister. Tony, Miss Reed has come far and is needing rest.'
'My wife will be delighted to welcome you, Miss Reed. Won't you come in?'
For all his cordial tone Rhodes was secretly filled with growing amazement. O'Hara's abrupt and unheralded return had surprised him, but that he should drop out of nowhere at 12:45 A.M. accompanied by a mysterious and lovely female who appeared to be dumb-for she had acknowledged neither the introduction nor his invitation to enter save by a barely perceptible inclination of the head-this struck him as unreasonably queer, and altogether out of keeping with O'Hara's known character.
The latch-key was scarcely withdrawn from the opening door when Cliona appeared at the head of the stairs. She had sent the servants to bed, but herself waited up for her husband. Having planned a pleasant little supper
Colin laughed, holding her off at ands length. 'Rues and ribbons,' said he, 'do you not see that I am dripping from the rain?'
'We have a visitor, Cliona,' put in Rhodes in his pleasantest manner. 'Miss Reed, let me make you acquainted with my wife.'
'Oh,' murmured Cliona, peering around her brother, behind whose shielding bulk the visitor seemed to have retreated. 'I'm so glad to know you, Miss Reed. Won't you come upstairs and remove your wraps? I see that as usual Colin has scorned to carry an umbrella, and I fear has let you suffer the consequences.'
Pause and silence.
'As for that, though, I don't suppose any umbrella would survive a wind such as we have had all evening. We'll have a little supper in a few minutes, and something hot to prevent all three of you from catching your death of cold.'
No answer nor acknowledgment from the mysterious one.
'Will you come with me, Miss Reed?'
No response to that, either.
It is rather difficult to continue a flow of cordial welcome addressed to a dark, motionless, speechless figure, whose very presence carries an ominous foreboding. And while her tongue had run lightly enough, Cliona's mind was a confusion of surmise.
Who on earth could this strange woman be? Reed? Reed? Why, that Evan the name of the man who owned the queer stock-farm. And Colin had come openly to Green Gables, which he was not to do till the bungalow affair was finished.
Was the mystery solved, then? And what had this Miss Reed to do with it? Why lead Colin brought her here, in the middle of the night and without warning? When he had phoned her at seven o'clock there had been nothing definite to report, or so he said.
Cliona ceased to speak, and one of those sudden ghastly silences overtook all four of them-the kind that the ideal hostess is supposed never to allow. Cliona wanted to be an ideal hostess-she looked appealingly from Rhodes to Colin.
The latter realized that the time had come when he must begin to explain. With a sigh for the task ahead of him, he turned to his Dusk Lady.
'Take off your coat, child,' he said gently. 'This is my sister that I told you of. You'll find only kindness in this house.'
Cliona and Tony looked at her, fascinated. The situation had passed beyond conventional handling. There was something here which only Colin understood.
They beheld a magnolia pale face, with crimson lips and starry, frightened eyes, but no words came from her.
'Oh!' cried Cliona again involuntarily, and Rhodes echoed the exclamation in his mind. Where had Colin discovered this girl with her unearthly beauty and equally unearthly manner? In South America? Spanish, perhaps? She looked like a Latin of some sort.
'Let me take your things,' offered Cliona, realizing that the girl's coat was as wet as Colin's own.
'Shall I remove them here?'
The mysterious Miss Reed asked the question of O'Hara, as though she regarded him as the arbiter of even her smallest acts.
'You may as well.' He took off his own ulster and thoughtfully flung it over the umbrella-stand in the entry. It was too wet for Cliona's hall-rack.
Miss Reed wore no hat, only the hood of her coat. Unfastening the coat itself, she slipped lithely out of it, leaving it in O'Hara's hands.
A startled and simultaneous gasp issued from three mouths at once, but Colin's was the most expressive. Saints above, he was glad there had been no occasion for her to remove that coat in the train or station!
Save that her feet were no longer bare, there stood his Dusk Lady exactly as she had stood upon the rug in Reed's entrance-hall while he stooped to examine Marco's body. Her green gown, wet as ever, clung to body and limbs in the revealing lines of a thin bathing suit. Her dark hair hung in the same beautiful but informal curls, and for the first time Colin was painfully aware of those worn places in her gown through which bare limbs shone whitely.
Her eyes darted from one face to another of those about her, frightened, questioning. They were all, even her 'lord,' looking at her in the strange way that no one had ever regarded her before the beginning of her long time of sadness. In the place of her nativity, no such tremendous and burdensome value was laid on mere
