The sound of spinning wheels on the drive startled her to fresh hope, and sent her hurrying down the stair. It was the phaëton returning from the last train. Through the open door she saw the figure of Mrs. Herrick expectant on the veranda. Then the carriage came into the porte-cochère and passed. With a rush she reached the veranda, and stood there looking after it. She wouldn't believe her eyes--she couldn't--that it had returned again empty. Mrs. Herrick's voice was asking her, "What shall we do? Shall we serve dinner now, or wait a little longer?" "Oh, it's no use," Flora murmured, "he won't come to-night. He'll never come." She drooped against the tall porch pillar. "My poor child!" Mrs. Herrick took her passive hand. If she read in the profound discouragement of Flora's face that something more had transpired than a mere non-appearance, she did not show it, but waited, alert and quiet, while they gazed together out over the darkening garden. It was the time of twilight when the sky is so much brighter than the earth. Across the lawns between the bushes from hedge to hedge the veil of the obscuring light was coming in; and through it the avenue of willows marched darkly. Their leaves moved a little. Flora watched the ripple of their tops, clear on the bright sky, and deeper down among mysterious branches there was a sense of movement where the eyes could not see. There was a curious flick, flick, flicker--a progression, a passing from the far dark end of the willow avenue toward where it met the vista of the drive. Flora's eyes, absently, involuntarily, followed the movement. She felt Mrs. Herrick's hand suddenly close on hers. "Is some one coming?" They clung to each other, peering timorously down the drive. A little gust of wind took the garden, and before the trees had ceased to tremble and whiten a man had emerged from their shadow and was advancing upon them up the middle of the drive. Flora's heart leaped at sight of him. All her impulse was to fly to meet him, but she felt Mrs. Herrick's hand tighten upon her wrist as if it divined her madness. His light stick aswing in his hand, his step free and incautious as ever, gray and slender and seeming to look more at the ground than at them, the two women watched him drawing near. His was the seeming of a quiet guest at the quietest of house parties. To meet him Flora saw she must meet him on the high ground of his reserve. As he came under the light of the porte-cochère his look, his greeting, his hand, were first for Mrs. Herrick. "We were afraid we had missed you altogether," said she. "It was I who somehow missed your carriage, was hardly expecting to be expected at such an hour."