"Edgerton," I said, with tones of good-humored reproach, "there's
no finding you now-a-days. You have the invisible cap. What do you
do with yourself? As for law, that seems destined to be a mourner
so far as you are concerned. She sits like a widow in her weeds.
You have abandoned her: do you mean to abandon your friends also?"
He answered, with a faint attempt to smile:-"No; I have been to see you often, but you are never at home."
"Ah! I did not hear of it. But if you really wished to see a husband
who has survived the honeymoon, I suspect that home is about the
last place where you should seek for him. Julia did the honors, I
trust?"
His eye stole upward, met mine, and sunk once more upon the floor.
He answered faintly:-"Yes, but I have not seen her for some days."
"Not since Mother Delaney's party, I believe?"
The color came again into his cheeks, but instantly after was
succeeded by a deadly paleness.
"What a bore these parties are! and such parties as those of Mrs.
Delaney are particularly annoying to me. Why the d--l couldn't
the old tabby halter her hobby without calling in her neighbors to
witness the painful spectacle? You were there, I think?"
"Yes."
"I left early. I got heartily sick. You know I never like such
places; and, as soon as they began dancing, I took advantage of
the fuss and fiddle to steal off. It was unfortunate I did so, for
Julia was taken sick, and has had a narrow chance for it. I thought
I should have lost her."
All this was spoken in tones of the coolest imaginable indifference.
Edgerton was evidently surprised. He looked up with some curiosity
in his glance, and more confidence; and, with accents that slightly
faltered, he asked:-"Is she well again? I trust she is better now."
"Yes!" I answered, with the same sang-froid. "But I've had a serious
business of watching through the last three nights. Her peril was
extreme. She lost her little one."
A visible shudder went through his frame.
"Tired to death of the walls of the house, which seems a dungeon
to me, I dashed out this morning, at daylight, as soon as I found
I could safely leave her; and, strolling down to the office,
who should I find there but your father, perched at the desk, and
seemingly inclined to resume all his former practice?"
"Indeed! my father--so early? What could be the matter? Did he
tell you?
"Yes, i'faith, he is in tribulation about you. He fancies you are
in a fair way to destruction. You can't conceive what he fancies.
It seems, according to his account, that you are a night-stalker.
He dwells at large upon your nightly absences from home, and then
about your appearance, which, to say truth, is very wretched. You
scarcely look like the same man. Edgerton. Have you been sick?
What's the matter with you?"