Frank,' Arthur exclaimed, his face brightening at once, 'you have made me so happy! My headache is quite gone,' and then he began to plan for the dinner, which was to be more elaborate than usual, and served an hour later, so as to give plenty of time for Gretchen to rest and dress herself if she wished to do so.
'And she will when she sees the lovely dress I have for her,' he thought to himself, and after his brother had gone he went to the large closet where he kept the long black trunk which he called Gretchen's, and into which Dolly's curious eyes had never looked, although she longed to know the contents.
This Arthur now opened, and had Dolly been there she would have held her breath in wonder at the many beautiful things it contained. Folded in one of the trays, as only a French packer accustomed to the business could have arranged it, was an exquisite dinner-dress of salmon-colored satin, with a brocaded front and jacket of blue and gold, and here and there a knot of duchess lace, which gave it a more airy effect. This Arthur took out carefully and laid upon the bed in his sleeping-apartment, together with every article of the toilet necessary to such a dress, from a lace pocket handkerchief to a pair of pale-blue silk hose, which he kissed reverently as he whispered to himself:
'Dear little feet, which, no doubt, are so cold now in the wretched car; but they will never be cold when once I have them here.'
He was talking in German, as he always did when Gretchen was the subject of his thought, and so Dolly, who came to say that some things which he had ordered for dinner were impossible now, could not understand him, but she caught a glimpse of the dress upon the bed, and advanced quickly toward the open door, exclaiming:
'Oh, Arthur, what a lovely gown! Whose—?'
But before she completed her question Arthur was upon the threshold and had closed the door, saying as he did so:
'It is Gretchen's. I had it made at Worth's. She is coming to-night, you know.'
Dolly had heard from her husband of Arthur's fancy, and though she had no faith in it, she replied:
'Yes, Frank told me you were expecting her again, and I came to say that we cannot get the fish you ordered, for no one can go to town in this storm, and I doubt if we could find it if we did. You will have to skip the fish.'
'All right; all right. Gretchen will be too much excited to care,' Arthur replied, standing with his hand upon the door-knob until Dolly left the room and went to this kitchen, where Frank was interviewing the coachman.
He had found that important personage before the fire, bending nearly double and complaining bitterly of a fall he had just had on his way from the stable to the house. According to his statement, the wind had taken him up bodily, and carrying him a dozen rods or so, had set him down heavily upon a stone flowerpot which was left outside in the winter, nearly breaking his back, as he declared. This did not look very promising for the drive to the station, and Frank opened the business hesitatingly, and asked John what he thought of it.
'I think I would not go out in such a storm as this with my back if Queen Victoria was to be there,' John answered gruffly. 'And what would be the use?' he continued. 'I have been to meet that woman, if she is a woman, with the outlandish name, more than fifty times, I'll bet; he don't know what he is talking about when he gets on her track. And s'posin' she does come, she can find somebody to fetch her. She ain't going to walk.'
This seemed reasonable; and as Frank's sympathies were with his coachman and horses rather than with Gretchen and his brother, he decided with John that he need not go, but added, laughingly, as he saw the man walk across the floor as well as he ever did on his way to the woodshed:
'Seems to me your broken back has recovered its elasticity very soon.'
To this John made no reply except an inaudible growl, and Frank returned to the library, resolving not to go near his brother until after train time, but to let him think that John had gone to the station.
At half-past five, however, Arthur sent for him, and said:
'Has he gone? It must be time.'
'Not quite; it is only half-past five. The train does not come until half-past six, and is likely to be late,' was Frank's reply.
'Yes, I know,' Arthur continued, 'but he should be there on time. Tell him to start at once, and take an extra robe with him, and say to Charles that I will have sherry to-night, and champagne, too, and Hamburg grapes, and—'
The remainder of his speech was lost on Frank, who was hurrying down the stairs with a guilty feeling in his heart, although he felt that the end justified the means, and that under the circumstances he was justified in deceiving his half-crazy brother. Still he was ill at ease. He had no faith in Arthur's presentiments, and no idea that any one bound for Tracy Park would be on the train that night, but he could not shake off a feeling of anxiety, amounting almost to a dread of some impending calamity, which possibly the sending of John to the station might have averted, and going to a window in the library, he, too, stood looking out into the night, trying not to believe that he was watching for some possible arrival, when, above the storm, he heard the shrill scream of the locomotive as it stopped for a moment and then dashed on into the white snow clouds; trying to believe, too, that he was not glad, as the minutes became a quarter, the quarter a half, and the half three-quarters, until at last he heard the clock strike the half-hour past seven, and nobody had come.
'I shall have to tell Arthur,' he thought, and, with something like hesitancy, he started for his brother's room.
Arthur was standing before the fire, with his arm thrown caressingly across the chair where Gretchen was to sit, when Frank opened the door and advanced a step or two across the threshold.
'Has she come? I did not see the carriage. Where is she?' Arthur cried, springing swiftly forward, while his bright, eager eyes darted past his brother to the open door-way and out into the hall.
'No, she has not come. I knew she wouldn't; and it was nonsense to send the horses out such a night as this,' Frank said, sternly, with a mistaken notion that he must speak sharply to the unfortunate man, who, if rightly managed, was gentle as a child.
'Not come! Gretchen not come! There must be some mistake!' Arthur said, all the brightness fading from his face, which seemed to grow pinched and pallid as he turned it piteously toward his brother and continued: 'Not come! Oh, Frank! did John say so? Was no one there? Let me go and question him—there must be a mistake.'
He was hurrying toward the door, when Frank caught his arm and detained him, while he said, decidedly:
'No use to see John. Can't you believe me when I tell you no one was there—and I knew there would not be. It was folly to send.'
For a moment a pale, haggard face, which looked still more haggard and pale with the firelight flickering over it, confronted Frank steadily; then the lips began to quiver, and the eyelids to twitch, while great tears gathered in Arthur's eyes, until at last, covering his face with his hands, he staggered to the couch, and throwing himself upon it, sobbed convulsively.
'Oh, Gretchen, my darling!' he said. 'I was so sure, and now everything is swept away, and I am left so desolate.'
Frank had never seen grief just like this, and, with his conscience pricking him a little for the deception he had practised, he found himself pitying his brother as he had never done before; and when at last the latter cried out loud, he went to him, and laying his hand gently upon his bowed head, said to him, soothingly:
'Don't,
