“Thank you, sir, I have greatly enjoyed your hospitality, but I must catch the first east-bound train.” The crouching heart within him quailed like a shuddering thing, and he went away very like a cur that is stoned from the door. CHAPTER XI. HEARTS LAID BARE. They sat in the breakfast room--the family and Cherokee. “Did I tell you, wife, that when Mr. Frost was here he brought me news of Robert Milburn?” The tall, graceful woman thus addressed looked from the head of the table, and showing much interest, questioned: “Indeed! well, how was he doing? I grew very fond of the boy when he was here.” “The news is sad; he has gone to drinking,” said the Major, sorrowfully. “I don’t believe it; we have no reason to take this stranger’s word; we don’t know who he is.” Turning to Cherokee she asked: “Did you ever hear of Mr. Frost in New York?” With a suppressed sigh, she answered: “He is an artist of considerable note, I knew him very well.” Suddenly Mrs. McDowell remembered that this was the bold man of whom Cherokee had told her much; so she questioned her no more, for she was always tender and thoughtful of others. The Major did not understand any connection of names, and he again alluded to the subject. “This New Yorker said it was about a girl; but the whole thing, to me, savors of some man’s hand--one who did not like him well.” Here the wife changed the subject by asking: “Who got any letters? I didn’t see the boy when he brought the mail.” “Cherokee must have had a love letter or a secret,” remarked the Major cheerily. “I saw her tearing it into tiny bits, and casting them in a white shower on the grass.” “Come, come, girlie, tell us all about it;” then suddenly the lady said: “How pale you are!” “I do not feel well this morning,” she answered; “the letter was from a friend of other days.” She stumbled to her feet in a dazed sort of way, and hurried out of the house. There was a touch of chill in the air, and the roses drooped; only wild-flower scents greeted her as she stopped and leaned against the matted honeysuckle arch by the garden gate. She searched the vine-tangle through, without finding one single blooming spray. This was Saturday; no school to-day. She felt a vague sense of relief in the thought, but what should she do with her holiday. She had lost her usual spirits, she had forgotten to be brave. The letter, maybe, or the stranger guest, had made the pale color in her cheeks; the eyelids drooped heavily on the tear-wet face, and checked the songs that most days welled perpetually over unthinking lips. She had never told of Robert’s treatment of her; of his cold leave-taking, his altered look, for her to remember always. She had been bearing it in silence. Bred to the nicest sense of honorable good faith, she had kept it alone. But to-day she was weakening; she was agitated, and in a condition of feverish suspense and changeful mind.