After a while Hemstead quietly left them, went to his room, and did not appear again till they were all at supper. He then, with a simple, yet quiet, high-bred ease,--the bearing of a natural gentleman,--gave sketches of what he had seen in New York, and the latest literary gossip. His manner towards Lottie was, as nearly as possible, the same as towards Bel and his cousin. He so completely ignored all that had happened--all that had passed between them--that Lottie almost feared to give him the note she had written. She could not rally, but grew more and more depressed and silent, a fact which De Forrest and her aunt marked uneasily. After supper he remarked that he would go over and say good-by to Mr. and Miss Martell and Harcourt. With what a foreboding chill Lottie heard that word "good-by"! Would he, indeed, go away without giving her a chance to say one word of explanation? She could endure it no longer. In accordance with her impulsive nature, she went straight to him, and said in a low tone, "Mr. Hemstead, will you please read that?" He trembled, but took the note, and said, after a moment, "Certainly," and was gone. An hour passed, and another; still he did not return. Lottie's head bent lower and lower over her work. Mr. Dimmerly never played a more wretched game of whist. At last he quite startled them all by throwing down the cards and saying, in the most snappish of tones, "I wish the blockhead would come home." "Why, brother, what is the matter?" asked Mrs. Marchmont, in a tone of surprise. "I want to lock up," said the old gentleman, in some confusion. "It's not late, yet." "Well, it ought to be. I never knew such an eternally long evening. The clocks are all wrong, and everything is wrong." "There, there, you have had bad luck over your whist." Lottie, however, knew what was the matter, and she gave him a shy, grateful look. But the old man was still more incensed when he saw that there were tears in her eyes, and he shuffled away, muttering something that sounded a little profane. Lottie, soon after, left the room also, but as she was passing through the hall she met Hemstead, who had come in at a side door. He took her hand in both of his, and said, gently, "I do forgive you, fully and completely, and I have your forgiveness to ask for my hasty judgment." "And will you be my friend again?" she asked, timidly, and in a way that taxed his resolution sorely. "You have no truer friend," he said, after a moment. "I think it was a little cruel, in so true a friend, to leave me all this desperately long evening." "You are mistaken," he said, abruptly, and passed hastily up to his room. She did not see him again that night.