As poor Lottie's mind emerged from its chaos into connected thought, she speedily came to the conclusion to tell Hemstead the whole truth, to condemn herself more severely than even he could in his anger, and to ask his forgiveness. But when she raised her tearful face to speak, he was gone. She heard the sound of bells. A sudden fear chilled her, and she sprang to the window and saw a vanishing form that she dreaded might be his. Without a word to Mrs. Marchmont, she rushed down to the lower hall, where she found Mr. Dimmerly fuming about. "Where is Mr. Hemstead?" she asked, eagerly. "What the deuce is the matter? What have you sister been saying that Frank should come down here white as a sheet?" "But where is he?" she asked again, in a tone that her uncle had never heard her use before. "Gone to New York for several days," he said. Lottie tottered a moment as if she had received a blow. With one hand she steadied herself on the balustrade of the stairs, while she passed the other across her brow, then turned and wearily climbed to her room. CHAPTER XXXIV. LOYAL. Bel was startled at the pallor of Lottie's face as she entered the room, and rose hastily to offer assistance, but Lottie motioned her away. Without a word she threw herself upon the bed and signified her grief and despair by an act as old as the oldest records of humanity,--she "turned her face to the wall." Bel knew that Mrs. Marchmont had "spoken plainly," and she had seen Hemstead drive away. She expected Lottie to come to her room in a towering passion, and was prepared to weather the storm in cynical endurance, assured that her friend would eventually thank her for having had a hand in breaking up the "whole absurd thing." But when Lottie entered, with the expression of one who had received a mortal wound,--when in silence and despair she had turned her face from all the world as if there were nothing left in it for which she cared,--the nervous young lady began to fear that this affair might not pass away like an ordinary "mood." She reasoned and remonstrated, but Lottie did not heed, and scarcely heard her. Then she went to Mrs. Marchmont, and disturbed even that lady's complacency by her account of Lottie's appearance and manner. But with approving consciences they both said, "It was time something was done." The dinner hour came, but Lottie silently shook her head to all urging to come down. It was the same at supper. Entreaty, remonstrance, the assumption of hurt and injured tones, were alike unavailing. She lay motionless, like one stunned and under partial paralysis. Mrs. Marchmont lost her complacency utterly, and Mr. Dimmerly proved but a Job's comforter, as he snarled, "You have stopped it with a vengeance. It's always the way when people meddle." Nervous Bel was in a perfect tremor of anxiety, perplexity, and weak remorse; and she kept flitting in and out of the room as pale and restless as a disquieted ghost.