Louisiana

"Have you ever seen her?" he asked. "I must confess to a dubiousness on the subject."

Before he could add another word Louisiana turned upon him. He could see her face clearly in the moonlight. It was white, and her eyes were dilated and full of fire.

"Why do you speak in that way?" she cried. "As if – as if such people were so far beneath you. What right have you – "

She stopped suddenly. Laurence Ferrol was gazing at her in amazement. She rose from her seat, trembling.

"I will go away a little," she said. "I beg your pardon – and Miss Ferrol's."

She turned her back upon them and went away. Ferrol sat holding her little round, white-feather fan helplessly, and staring after her until she disappeared.

It was several seconds before the silence was broken. It was he who broke it.

"I don't know what it means," he said, in a low voice. "I don't know what I have done!"

In a little while he got up and began to roam aimlessly about the gallery. He strolled from one end to the other with his hands thrust in his coat pockets. Olivia, who had remained seated, knew that he was waiting in hopes that Louisiana would return. He had been walking to and fro, looking as miserable as possible, for about half an hour, when at last she saw him pause and turn half round before the open door of an upper corridor leading out upon the verandah. A black figure stood revealed against the inside light. It was Louisiana, and, after hesitating a moment, she moved slowly forward.

She had not recovered her color, but her manner was perfectly quiet.

"I am glad you did not go away," she said.

Ferrol had only stood still at first, waiting her pleasure, but the instant she spoke he made a quick step toward her.

"I should have felt it a very hard thing not to have seen you again before I slept," he said.

She made no reply, and they walked together in silence until they reached the opposite end of the gallery.

"Miss Ferrol has gone in," she said then.

He turned to look and saw that such was the case. Suddenly, for some reason best known to herself, Olivia had disappeared from the scene.

Louisiana leaned against one of the slender, supporting pillars of the gallery. She did not look at Ferrol, but at the blackness of the mountains rising before them. Ferrol could not look away from her.

"If you had not come out again," he said, after a pause, "I think I should have remained here, baying at the moon, all night."

Then, as she made no reply, he began to pour himself forth quite recklessly.

"I cannot quite understand how I hurt you," he said. "It seemed to me that I must have hurt you, but even while I don't understand, there are no words abject enough to express what I feel now and have felt during the last half hour. If I only dared ask you to tell me – "

She stopped him.

"I can't tell you," she said. "But it is not your fault – it is nothing you could have understood – it is my fault – all my fault, and – I deserve it."

He was terribly discouraged.

"I am bewildered," he said. "I am very unhappy."

She turned her pretty, pale face round to him swiftly.

"It is not you who need be unhappy," she exclaimed. "It is I!"

The next instant she had checked herself again, just as she had done before.

"Let us talk of something else," she said, coldly.

"It will not be easy for me to do so," he answered, "but I will try."

Before Olivia went to bed she had a visit from her.

She received her with some embarrassment, it must be confessed. Day by day she felt less at ease with her and more deeply self-convicted of some blundering, – which, to a young woman of her temperament, was a sharp penalty.

Louisiana would not sit down. She revealed her purpose in coming at once.

"I want to ask you to make me a promise," she said, "and I want to ask your pardon."

"Don't do that," said Olivia.

"I want you to promise that you will not tell your brother the truth until you have left here and are at home. I shall go away very soon. I am tired of what I have been doing. It is different from what you meant it to be. But you must promise that if you stay after I have gone – as of course you will – you will not tell him. My home is only a few miles away. You might be tempted, after thinking it over, to come and see me – and I should not like it. I want it all to stop here – I mean my part of it. I don't want to know the rest."

Olivia had never felt so helpless in her life. She had neither self-poise, nor tact, nor any other daring quality left.

"I wish," she faltered, gazing at the girl quite pathetically, "I wish we had never begun it."

"So do I," said Louisiana. "Do you promise?"

"Y-yes. I would promise anything. I – I have hurt your feelings," she confessed, in an outbreak.

She was destined to receive a fresh shock. All at once the girl was metamorphosed again. It was her old ignorant, sweet, simple self who stood there, with trembling lips and dilated eyes.

"Yes, you have!" she cried. "Yes, you have!"

And she burst into tears and turned about and ran out of the room.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ROAD TO THE RIGHT

The morning after, Ferrol heard an announcement which came upon him like a clap of thunder.

After breakfast, as they walked about the grounds, Olivia, who had seemed to be in an abstracted mood, said, without any preface:

"Miss Rogers returns home to-morrow."

Laurence stopped short in the middle of the path.

"To-morrow!" he exclaimed. "Oh, no."

He glanced across at Louisiana with an anxious face.