Almost to a second of time had Irene learned to calculate the minutes it required for Hartley to make the distance between the landing and the nearest point in the road where his form could meet her view.

She held her breath in eager expectation as that moment of time approached.

It came--it passed; the white spot in the road, where his dark form first revealed itself, was touched by no obscuring shadow.

For more than ten minutes Irene sat motionless, gazing still toward that point; then, sighing deeply, she arose and went up to her room, from which she did not come down until summoned to join her father at tea.
The next day passed as this had done, and so did the next.

Hartley neither came nor sent a message of any kind.