"Where is Mr. Varrick?" she asked. "Surely, he has not dined yet?" "Oh, no," said the old lady, complacently sipping her tea. "He went out for a walk some two hours ago, and he has not yet returned." Rosamond started. Some two hours! Why, that was just about the time that Jessie Bain had left the house. She wondered if by any chance he had seen her. What if he should have asked the girl where she was going, and learn that she had been sent by her so long a distance, and in the deep snow, on such a trifling errand! The girl might tell it out of pure spite. Laughing lightly, Rosamond shook off this fear. She had never seen a man whom she liked as well as she liked Hubert Varrick. She always had her own way through life, and now that she had settled it in her mind that she would like to have this same Hubert Varrick for her husband, she no more thought it possible for her will to be thwarted than she deemed it possible for the night to turn suddenly into day. Rosamond was almost beside herself with excitement when that wedding was so summarily broken off. "It was the hand of Fate!" she cried. "He was intended for me. That is why that marriage did not take place." She had made numerous little excuses to go to Boston with her maid, and always called at his mother's house, making herself most agreeable to the haughty mother, for the sake of the handsome son. Rosamond had quite wormed herself into the good graces of Hubert's mother. She had not been there for over six months, however, and consequently had never heard of Jessie Bain. She had been waiting long and patiently, when suddenly she had read of his marriage to Geralda Northrup, and almost immediately after came the startling intelligence of the disaster in which he had lost his bride. And again Rosamond Lee said that Gerelda was not to have him, that Fate intended him for her; and she timed her visit to her guardian's when she knew he would be there. Rosamond tried hard to take an interest in the dinner, but everything seemed to go wrong with her. The tea was too weak, the biscuits too cold, and the tarts too sweet. She did her best to keep up the conversation with her guardian and his chatty old wife, but it was a dismal failure. At every footstep she started. Why did he not come? It was a relief to her when the meal was over. She walked slowly into the drawing-room, angry enough to find old Mr. Bassett and his wife had preceded her, and that they had settled themselves down there for a long evening. Up and down the length of the long room Rosamond swept to and fro, stopping every now and then to draw the heavy curtains aside, in order to strain her eyes out into the darkness of the night.