It had been a common saying among his friends that no situation however unexpected ever found Lyman Gage off his guard, or ever saw him give away his own emotions. Like lightning there flitted over his face now a sudden cloud like a curtain, shutting out all that he had been the moment before, putting under lock and seal any like or dislike he might be feeling, allowing only the most cool courtesy to appear in his expression. Miss Marilla, watching him like a cat, could not tell whether he was glad or sorry, surprised or indignant or pleased. He seemed none of these. He glanced with cool indifference toward the lovely vision smiling in the doorway now and ready to gush over him, and a stern dignity grew in the set of his jaws; but otherwise he did not seem to have changed, and most casually, as if he had seen her but the week before, he remarked: “Oh! Is that you, Elinore? Seems to me you have chosen a cold day to go out. Won’t you sit down?” He motioned toward a stiff little chair that stood against the wall, though Mary Amber’s rocker was still waving back and forth from her hasty retreat. Miss Marilla simply faded out of the room, although Gage said politely, “don’t leave us, please.” But she was gone before the words were out of his mouth, and with a sudden feeling of weakness he glanced around the room wildly, and realized that Mary Amber was gone too. Mary Amber stood in the sewing-room, and wondered what she ought to do. For the other door of the sewing-room was closed and barred by a heavy iron bed that had been put up for convenience during the soldier’s illness, and the only spot that was long enough to hold it was straight across the hall door. Obviously Mary Amber could not get out of the sewing-room without moving that bed, and she knew by experience of making it every morning that it squeaked most unmercifully when it was moved. Neither could she go out through the spare bedroom, for she felt that her appearance would cause no end of explanations; and equally of course she dared not shut the door because it would make a noise and call attention to her presence. So Mary Amber tiptoed softly to the farthest end of the little room, and stood rigidly silent, trying not to listen, yet all the more attuned and sensitive to whatever was going on in the next room. She fairly held her breath lest they should hear her, and pressed her fingers upon her hot eyeballs as if that would shut out the sound. “That’s scarcely the way I expected you to meet me, Lyme,” in the sweet lilt of Elinore Harrower’s petted voice. “I was scarcely expecting you, you know, after what has happened,” came chillingly in Lyman Gage’s voice, a bit high and hollow from his illness, and all the cooler for that. “I couldn’t stay away when I knew you were ill, Lyme, dear!” The voice was honeyed sweet now. “What had that to do with it?” The tone was almost vicious. “You wrote that we had grown apart, and it was true. You are engaged to another man.”