Suddenly a carriage drove up in front of the house, and leaping from his seat the driver stood waiting.  The door of the vestibule opened, and Scotty himself stepped uncertainly within.  At the library entrance he halted, but the odor of the black cigar he was smoking was wafted in.

Through it all, neither of the two in that room had stirred.  It would have been impossible to tell what Ben Blair was thinking.  His eyes never left the watch in his hand.  During the first minute the girl had not looked at her companion.  Unappeasable anger seemed personified in her.  For half of the next minute she still stood impassive; then she glanced up almost surreptitiously.  For the long third minute the eyes held where they had lifted, and slowly over the soft brown face, taking the place of the former expression, came a look that was not of anger or of hatred, not even of dislike, but of something the reverse, something all but unbelievable.  Her dark eyes softened.  A choking lump came into her throat; and still, in seeming paradox, she was of a sudden happier than at any time she could remember.

Before the last minute was up, before Ben Blair had replaced the watch, she was in the adjoining room saying good-bye to Mollie hurriedly; saying something more,—­a thing that fairly took the mother’s breath.

“Florence Baker!” she gasped, “you shall not do it!  If you do, I will disown you!  I will never forgive you—­never! never!”

But, unheeding, the girl was already back, and looking into Ben’s face.  Her eyes were very bright, and there was about her a suppressed excitement that the other did not clearly understand.

“I am ready,” she said, “on one condition.”

Blair’s blue eyes looked a question.  In any other mood he would have recognized Florence, but this strange person he hardly seemed to know.

“I am listening,” he said.

The girl hesitated, the rosy color mounting to her cheeks.  Decision of action was far easier than expression.

“I will go with you,” she faltered, “but alone.”

A suggestion of the flame on the other’s face sprang to the man’s also.

“I think, under the circumstances,” he stammered, “it would be better to have your father go too.”

The dainty brown figure stiffened.

“Very well, then—­I will not go!”

The man stood for a moment immovable, with unshifting eyes, like a figure in clay; then, turning, without a word, he started to leave the room.  He had almost reached the door, when he heard a voice behind him.

“Ben Blair,” it said insistently, “Ben Blair!”

He paused, glanced back, and could scarcely believe his eyes.  The girl was coming toward him; but it was a Florence he had not previously known.  Her face was rosier than before, red to her very ears and to the waves of her hair.  Her chin was held high, and beneath the thin brown skin of the throat the veins were athrob.