When Mrs. Van Rensselaer came down stairs a half-hour later she found Charles in the parlor anxiously awaiting her coming. Her face was bland and encouraging. She tried to smile, though smiles were foreign to her nature.

"Well," she said, seating herself and signing to the young man to take a chair opposite her, "she is naturally very much shocked."

"Of course she would be," said Charles, somewhat sadly, and waited.

"I think, as I said, it will take her a few hours to become adjusted to the new state of things, and it would not be well for you to see her to-night. There will be plenty of time in the morning. The hour was set late, so that all the relatives could arrive, you know. She will undoubtedly accept your proposal, but you must give her a little time."

"You think she will?" asked the young man, brightening. "Oh, that is good! Certainly I can wait until morning. Poor little girl, it must be very hard for her!"

A hard glitter in his hostess's eye did not encourage conversation along these lines, and he soon excused himself to go and meet his father, who had gone to the inn to see that the rest of the family were comfortable for the night.

The household settled to quiet at last, but it was like the sullen silence before a storm.

A heavy burden had fallen upon Mr. Van Rensselaer. He seemed to be arraigned before his first wife's searching eyes, for the trouble that had befallen their child. He could not get away from the vision of her dead face.

His wife spent the night in feverish planning for the morning, a fiendish determination in her heart to be rid of her step-daughter, no matter to what she had to resort in order to compa.s.s it.

Mr. Winthrop had leisure now to think upon his oldest son, and the sin which he had been about to commit, and tears trickled down his cheeks as he watched through the long hours of the night. His wife vouchsafed him no word or look. To all appearances, she was asleep, but no one ever knew what struggles were going on within her soul. Perhaps she was holding herself in abeyance for the coming of the beloved son who would explain all.

In the s.p.a.cious chamber a.s.signed to him, Charles spent much of the night in a vision with a white-robed girl upon a hillside, and his waking visions and those sleeping were so blended that he was scarce aware when starlight merged into morning, and he heard the birds twitter in the branches near his window.

Of all that household, only Dawn slept. Her heart, bowed with its burden of apprehension, had reached the limit of endurance, and the long lashes lay still upon the white cheeks, while her soul ceased from its troubling for a little while.

She awoke with a start of painful realization, while yet the first crimson streak of morning lay in the east. Its rosy light reminded her of the day, and what it was to mean for her. With a sound that was like both a sob and a prayer, she rose quickly, and, slipping on the little white gown she had worn the evening before, nor stopping to do more than brush out the ma.s.s of curls, she hastened stealthily down the stairs and, taking care to close the door behind her that her escape should not be noticed, went out into the garden. She would slip back quietly, before the guests were astir, she told herself. She wanted one more hour to herself in the dewy garden, before life shut her in forever from freedom and her girlhood.

Five minutes later, her step-mother, in dressing-gown and slippers, crossed the hall hastily and pushed open the girl's door. She had fallen asleep toward morning, and had slept later than she had intended.

But she had her plans carefully laid, and determined to settle the girl's part before any one was up.

At that same instant, Charles, whose heart was alive for the possibilities of the new day, stepped out on the balcony in front of his window, and with easy agility swung himself over the railing and dropped to the terrace beneath. He was too impatient to sleep longer, and felt that somehow he would be nearer his heart's desire if he got out into the dewy morning world.

He walked slowly down the carefully tended paths, into the garden, stopping to notice a bird's note here, the glint of dew-drops over the lawn, the newly opened flowers in the beds of poppies, bachelor b.u.t.tons, foxglove, asters, and sweet-peas. A great th.o.r.n.y branch that must have evaded the gardener's careful training reached out as if to catch his attention, and there upon its tip was a spray of delicate buds, just half blown, exquisite as an angel's wings, and with the warm glow of the sunrise in the sheathlike, curling petals. Were they white or pink or yellow? A warm white, living and tender, like a maiden's cheek. He reached for the spray and cut it off, feeling sure he could make his peace with the mistress of the house when he confessed his theft. He stood a moment looking at the beautiful roses, one almost full blown, the other two just curling apart, like a baby trying to waken. He drank in their fragrance in a long, deep breath, and then, thinking his fanciful thoughts of the girl to whom he had given his heart so freely before he yet knew her, he walked slowly on to the little arbor hid among the yew trees.

Mrs. Van Rensselaer stood in the doorway of Dawn's room, aghast, scarcely able to believe her eyes. Yes, the girl was gone. Where? was her instant thought. Perhaps she had fled, and would make them more trouble. A great fear clutched at the woman's heart lest she had made a terrible mistake by not talking the matter over with her step-daughter the night before, and making her understand what she was to do. Now, perhaps, it would be found out by them all, and by her husband in particular, that she had not yet told the girl anything. Mrs. Van Rensselaer had a decided fear of her husband. Their wills had never really clashed so far, but for some years she had had a feeling that if they ever did, he would be terrible. She shrank back with a wild heating of her heart, and looked about the shadowy hall as if she expected to find the girl lurking there. Then her stern common-sense came to the surface, and she went boldly into the room and made a systematic search. It did not take but a minute to make sure that Dawn was not there, and that wherever she was she had taken nothing with her, save the clothes she had worn the evening before. It suddenly occurred to the step-mother that she ought to have gone into the room before retiring last night and made sure that her charge was there; but so sure had she been that she had heard Dawn come in, it had not occurred to her to do it. Besides, where could the girl go? She was very likely maundering about that dull old garden she had haunted ever since her return from school.

With that, Mrs. Van Rensselaer looked out of the window, just in time to catch sight of her young guest cutting the roses. With keen apprehension, she saw what might be about to happen, and knew that instant action was the only thing that could prevent a catastrophe.

Regardless of dressing-gown and slippers, and of the night-cap which concealed her scant twist of hair, she descended the stairs, strode out the front door and down the garden path, coming in sight of the young man just as he turned the corner of the yew hedge into the walk that led into the green arbor.

Charles stopped suddenly, for there sat Dawn in her little white gown, with her head bowed upon her arms, on the rustic table, and her wealth of dark curls covering her. Her young frame shook with sobbing, yet so quietly did she weep that he had not heard her.

Her ear, alert with apprehension, caught the sound of his foot upon the gravel, and she raised her head as suddenly as he had stopped.

She looked at him with frightened eyes, out of which the tears had fled down her white cheeks. The face was full of anguish, yet sweet and pitiful withal, framed in its ripple of dark hair.

One instant she looked at him as if he were a vision from whence she could not tell, then that great light grew in her eyes, as he had seen it on the hillside, and before he knew what he was doing he had smiled.

Then the light in her eyes grew into an answering smile and lit up her whole beautiful, sorrowful face. It was like a rainbow in the pale dawn of the morning, that smile, with the tear-drops still upon her lashes.

"Jemima, what on earth!" broke in the harsh voice of her step-mother.

"You certainly do take the craziest notions! You out here in that rig at this time in the morning! I guess you didn't count on company rising early, too. And your hair not combed either! I certainly am mortified.

Run in quick and get tidied up. There's plenty to do this morning, without mooning in the garden. You'll excuse her"-to the guest. "She had no idea any one else would be out here so early."

The smile had gone from the girl's face, and instead the fright had come back at sound of her tormentor's jangling voice. She looked down at her little rumpled frock, put back her hair with trembling hand, and a flood of sweet, shamed color came into the white face, just as the sun burst up behind the hedge and touched the green with rosy morning brightness.

Without a word in reply, she turned to go, but her eyes met those of Charles with a pleading that went to his heart, and his eyes answered unspeakable things, of which neither knew the meaning, though each felt the strange joy they brought.

As he stood back to let her pa.s.s, he held out to her the spray of lovely rosebuds, and without a word she took them and went swiftly on into the house. Not a word had pa.s.sed between them, yet each felt that something wonderful had happened.

Dawn looked neither to right nor to left, fearing lest she should see some one less welcome, and so she fled to her room, with the sound of her step-mother's clanging voice, uttering some commonplaces about the morning and the garden, floating to her in indistinct waves.

"You will let me see her now just as soon as she is ready to come down?"

Charles asked eagerly at the door.

"I will talk with her at once, and let you know what she says," answered the vexed lady evasively. She was all out of breath and flurried with the anxiety lest she had been too late. It had been a narrow escape.

She did not like to begin an important day like this with being fl.u.s.tered. Besides, she had become conscious of her night-cap, the ugly lines of her dressing-gown, the flop-flop of her slippers. A long wisp of hair had escaped from her cap and was tickling her nose, as she ascended the stairs with as much dignity as the circ.u.mstances and her slippers allowed, in full sight of the ardent lover.

"Well, Jemima Van Rensselaer, I hope you're satisfied!" she flared out, as soon as she was inside the girl's door. "What on earth took you out in the wet at this unearthly hour? And on your wedding day, too! I should think you'd be ashamed! I declare I shall be glad to my soul when this day's over and I can wash my hands of the responsibility of you. If your father knew the freaks and fancies and the queer actions of you I'm not sure what he wouldn't do to you! Now, look here! Sit down. I want to talk to you."

But Dawn had flung herself upon her bed in a paroxysm of tears, and was smothering her wild sobs in the pillow. She did not hear a word.

Nor could threats nor protests, nor even a thorough shaking, bring her out of it until the tears had wept themselves out. But finally she lay quiet and white upon the bed, and even the hard-hearted woman who did not love her was stirred to a sort of pity for the abject woe that was upon her face.

"Say, look here, Jemima"-even the hated name brought forth no sign from the girl-"now put away all this foolishness. Girls always feel kind of queer at getting married and making a change in life. I did, myself."

Dawn wondered indifferently if her step-mother had ever been a girl.

She certainly had not been one when she married Dawn's father.

"You'll feel all right once you get in your own home and have things the way you want them around you."

Dawn shuddered. She would have _him_ around her.

"Now, do get up and wash your face. A bride oughtn't to look as if she was just getting over the measles. Besides, you'll be wanted pretty soon to go downstairs--"

"Oh!" Dawn involuntarily put her hand over her heart. "Must I go down and see all those dreadful people? Couldn't I just stay here till-till-till it's time?"

Now, this was exactly what Mrs. Van Rensselaer wanted her to say, and, moreover, had been counting upon. If Dawn had a.s.sented to going down, her step-mother would have found some excuse for keeping her upstairs.

But she did not wish the girl to know it, so she a.s.sumed a look of mild disapproval.

"It's very queer for you not to want to meet your mother-in-law and father-in-law, and all your new sisters--"

Dawn shuddered more violently, and clasped her hands quickly over her eyes, as if to shut out the unpleasant vision of her new kindred.

"Oh, no, no, please!" she besought, looking up at her step-mother with more earnest pleading than she had ever shown her before.

"Well"-grimly-"I suppose it can be managed, but you'll want to have a talk with him that's so soon to be your husband--"

"Oh, no, no!" cried Dawn wildly. "I do not want to see him. I cannot talk with him now. I could never, never, go through that awful ceremony afterward if I were to see him now. I should run away or something. I'm sure I should. I don't want to see anybody until I have to."

"He'll think it very strange. I don't see how I can explain it. He's very anxious to talk to you. He sent you a message last night, but you were asleep."