CHAPTER VII. THE LETTER. _YES_, what did it mean? Christmas Eve, and Hartley still absent? Twilight was falling when Irene came down from her room and joined her father in the library. Mr. Delancy looked into her face narrowly as she entered. The dim light of the closing day was not strong enough to give him its true expression; but he was not deceived as to its troubled aspect. "And so Hartley will not be here to-day," he said, in a tone that expressed both disappointment and concern. "No. I looked for him confidently. It is strange." There was a constraint, a forced calmness in Irene's voice that did not escape her father's notice. "I hope he is not sick," said Mr. Delancy. "Oh no." Irene spoke with a sudden earnestness; then, with failing tones, added-- "He should have been here to-day." She sat down near the open grate, shading her face with a hand-screen, and remained silent and abstracted for some time. "There is scarcely a possibility of his arrival to-night," said Mr. Delancy. He could not get his thoughts away from the fact of his son-in-law's absence. "He will not be here to-night," replied Irene, a cold dead level in her voice, that Mr. Delancy well understood to be only a blind thrown up to conceal her deeply-disturbed feelings. "Do you expect him to-morrow, my daughter?" asked Mr. Delancy, a few moments afterward, speaking as if from a sudden thought or a sudden purpose. There was a meaning in his tones that showed his mind to be in a state not prepared to brook evasion.