The two days passed slowly. Jack, of course, kept aloof, and I saw nothing and heard nothing of him. Where he was, or what he was doing, I could not tell. I could only conjecture. And all my conjectures led to the fixed conviction that Jack in his desperation had written to her, and proposed flight. This conviction became intensified more and more every hour. I grew more and more impatient. My mood became one of constant and incessant fidgetiness, nervousness, and harrowing suspense. CHAPTER XXIV. TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT.--THE HOUR APPROACHES, AND WITH IT THE MAN.--THE LADY OF THE ICE.--A TUMULTUOUS MEETING.--OUTPOURING OF TENDER EMOTIONS.--AGITATION OF THE LADY.--A SUDDEN INTERRUPTION.--AN INJURED MAN, AN AWFUL, FEARFUL, DIREFUL, AND UTTERLY-CRUSHING REVELATION.--WHO IS THE LADY OF THE ICE? At last the appointed evening came, and I prepared to go to O'Halloran's. By this time I was roused up to a pitch of excitement such as I had never before experienced. For two days and two nights I had been brooding and dreaming over this one subject, imagining all sorts of things, making all sorts of conjectures about Jack's letter and Miss O'Halloran's reception of it. Was it possible that she could share his madness and his desperation? That I could not tell. Women in love, and men in love also, will always act madly and desperately. But was she in love? Could that serene, laughing, merry, happy face belong to one who was capable of a sudden act of desperation--of one who would flit with Jack, and fling her father into Borrow at a moment's warning? How could that be? So by turns my hopes and my fears rose in the ascendant, and the end of it all was that, by the time I reached O'Halloran's door, Jack himself, in his most frantic mood, could not have been more perfectly given up to any headlong piece of rashness, folly, and desperation, than I was. I knocked at the door. I was admitted, and shown into the room. O'Halloran, I was told, had just arrived, and was dressing. Would I be kind enough to wait? I sat down. In about two minutes I heard a light footstep. My heart beat fast. Some one was coming. Who? The light footstep and the rustling dress showed that it was a lady. But who? Was it the servant? Or Marion? Was it Nora? My heart actually stood still as these possibilities suggested themselves, and I sat glaring at the door. The figure entered. My heart gave a wild bound; the blood surged to my face, and boiled in my veins. It was Nora's self! It was--it was--my Nora! I rose as she entered. She greeted me with her usual beaming and fascinating smile. I took her hand, and did not say a word for a few moments. The hour had come. I was struggling to speak. Here she was. This was the opportunity for which I had longed. But what should I say?