“I’m so sorry to bring you into all this trouble, Hugo,” she said, in a strained little voice....  “And when we were having such a happy time....”

All thought of putting down his foot faded at once from Canning’s mind, obliterated in a wave that went through him, half passion, half pure tenderness.  Indifferent to Mrs. Heth, he advanced and took the girl in his arms, speaking in a manly way the sympathy with her distress which rushed up in him at that moment.  And then he said words that went with Carlisle as a comfort all through the night.

“Your trouble is my own, Carlisle.  I’m with you in everything now, happiness or unhappiness.  Whatever happens, you know my heart and strength are yours through all time.”

Carlisle, too deeply moved to speak, thanked her lover with a look.  The moment’s silence was broken by Mrs. Heth, resolutely blowing her nose.  And then all opportunity for talk was lost in the rush for the train.

* * * * *

To herself she seemed to lie endlessly between sleeping and waking:  and the rhythmic noises of the train sounded a continual cadence, Dalhousie’s unquiet requiem.  But she must have fallen sound asleep without knowing it; for her eyes opened suddenly with a start, and she was aware of the clanging of bells, the waxing and waning of men’s voices, the hiss of steam and the flaring of yellow lights.  Looking out under the blind, she saw that they had come to a city, which must be Philadelphia.  Two hours nearer home....

Now her wakefulness had a sharper quality; Cally lay wide-eyed, in a dazed chill wonder.  Once in the night she pushed up the curtain, raised herself on an elbow in the stateroom berth; and her splendid gay hair, loosened with much tossing, streamed downward over her shoulders.  Outside was a world of moonlit peace.  The flying trees had tops of silver; meadows danced by in splotches of light and shade; once they sped over a lovely river.  Strange to think, that if she had but said on that far-away day, “He frightened me so, I didn’t want to call him hack,”—­just those words, how few and simple,—­she would not be hurrying home now, with everything ahead so dark, so terrifying.  And, though she seemed to try a long time, she could not think now why she had not said these words, could not weigh those slight fanciful tremors against this vast icy void....

She fell asleep; woke again to more clanging and hissing; slept and dreamed badly; and suddenly sat up in the berth, confusedly, to find it broad day, and the sun streaming through the little crevice beneath the curtain.  Her mother was standing braced in the aisle of the little room, dressing systematically.

“We’ve passed Penton.  You’d better get up,” said the brisk familiar tones.

And she eyed her daughter narrowly as she asked if she had slept.

Home again.  This time yesterday, who would have dreamed this possible?...