Margaret Hayley, Mrs. Burton Hayley and Captain Hector Coles were also at supper, but they had nearly finished when Townsend took his seat. They rose the moment after, and as they did so the lawyer, now once more so arrayed as to display his own proper person, caught the eye of Margaret. She nodded and smiled, yes, smiled!--in answer to his bow across the table; and he could almost have taken his professional oath that a quick sparkle came to her eye when she saw him, then died away as quickly as if compelled back by a strong will. Mrs. Burton Hayley did not seem to see him at all; but Captain Coles signified that _he_ did so, by a glance of such new-born contempt blended with old hatred, as he should never have wasted upon any one except a national enemy whom he had just defeated in arms. The party swept down the room, and very soon after the others whom we have noted also rose and disappeared, leaving Horace Townsend discussing his supper with what appetite he might. It may be consoling to some curious persons to know that that appetite was by no means contemptible, and that he did not falter in physique if restless unquiet and anxiety made a prey of his mind. Half an hour after, he was smoking his cigar on the piazza, none whom he knew within view; and he strolled out into the edge of the wood to the right of the house, to enjoy (if enjoyment it could be called) solitude, gloom and darkness. The path he followed led him eventually round in a circle and brought him back to the edge again, only a few yards from the house and near the spot where the two huge bears were moving about, dense black spots in the twilight. There was a rude bench beneath the trees not far from what might have been called their "orbit" (especially as they are sometimes "stars" at the menageries); and on that bench he discovered three figures. He was but a little distance away when he first saw them and that they were two ladies and a gentleman; and he was still nearer before he became aware that they were the Hayleys, mother and daughter, with their inevitable attendant and cavalier. They were in conversation, not toning it so low as if they had any particular anxiety against its being overheard; and yet Horace Townsend, much as he might have wished to know every word that came from the lips of at least one of the three, might have passed on without listening intentionally to one utterance, if he had not chanced to hear that they were discussing the event of the day. That fact literally chained him to the root of the tree near which he was standing--he was _so_ anxious to know what version of the affair had already been circulated and given credence among the three or four hundred visitors at the Crawford, and especially among the particular three of that number.