On the landing, where some faint reflection of the starlight and gas-light outside filtered through the musty atmosphere, Kate paused a moment to gather the weaker form of her sister protectingly close to her. “Are you utterly tired out, pet?” she asked. “I’m afraid it’s been too much for you.” “Oh, no,” said Ethel. “Only--yes, I am tired of one thing--of your slowness of perception. Why, child alive, Mr. Tracy has been just burning to take up our cause ever since he first saw you. You thought he was indifferent, and all the while he was over head and ears in love with you! I watched him every moment, and it was written all over his face; and you never saw it!” The answering voice fell with a caressing imitation of reproof upon the darkness: “You silly puss, you think everybody is in love with me!” it said. Then the two young ladies, furred and tippeted, emerged upon the sidewalk, stepped into their carriage, and were whirled off homeward under the starlight. A few seconds later, two other figures, a woman and a child, also emerged from this same stairway, and, there being no coachman in waiting for them, started on foot down the street. The woman was Jessica Lawton, and she walked wearily with drooping head and shoulders, never once looking at the little boy whose hand she held, and who followed her in wondering patience. She had stood in the stairway, drawn up against the wall to let these descending ladies pass. She had heard all they said, and had on the instant recognized Kate Minster’s voice. For a moment, in this darkness suddenly illumined by Ethel’s words, she had reflected. Then she, too, had turned and come down the stairs again. It seemed best, under these new circumstances, not to see Reuben Tracy just now. And as she slowly walked home, she almost forgot the existence of the little boy, so deeply was her mind engaged with what she had heard. As for Reuben, the roseate dreams had all come back. From the drear mournfulness of chill November his heart had leaped, by a fairy transition, straight into the bowers of June, where birds sang and fountains plashed, and beauty and happiness were the only law. It would be time enough to-morrow to think about this great struggle with cunning scoundrels for the rescue of a princely fortune, which opened before him. This evening his mind should dwell upon nothing but thoughts of _her!_ And so it happened that an hour later, when he decided to lock up the office and go over to supper, he had never once remembered that the Lawton girl’s appointment remained unkept. CHAPTER XXVI.--OVERWHELMING DISCOMFITURE.