And then, after just enough time to dress, they began to pass landmarks, and presently to slacken speed; and then they were stepping down from the train, out into the hotch-potch gathering on the sunny station platform.

Both women were heavily veiled.  Mrs. Heth’s furtive glances discovered no one who was likely to hail them, demanding what in the world these things meant.  A ramshackle hack invited and received them.  And, jogging over streets crowded with a life-time’s associations, the Heths presently came to their own house, whose face they had not thought to see again these four months....

Mr. Heth was away, fishing, in a spot dear to his heart, but remote from railroad or telegraph.  The House of Heth looked like a deserted house; its blinds were drawn from fourth story to basement.  However, there was old Moses, bowing and running down the steps to open the carriage door and assist with the hand-luggage.  He greeted the ladies with courtliness, and inquired mout anybody be sick.  Answered vaguely on this point, he announced that he had breakfast ready-waiting on the table; this, though Mr. Canning’s telegraph never retched him till nea’bout eight o’clock.  His tone indicated a pride of accomplishment not, he hoped, unjustified.

Having removed the more superficial stains of travel, the two women sat at table in the half-dismantled dining-room.  It was a meal not easily to be forgotten, made the more fantastic by Mrs. Heth’s determined attempts to act as if nothing in particular had happened.  From her remarks to the ancient family retainer it appeared that she and Miss Carlisle had returned home to attend to a business matter of no great consequence, overlooked in the rush of departure.  And she demanded, quite as if that were the very business referred to, whether the plumber had come to stop the drip in the white-room bathroom.

The butler’s reply took a not unfamiliar direction.  The plumber, and his helper, had come and ’xperimented round:  but they had not yet stopped the drip....

Mrs. Heth ate heartily, with a desperate matter-of-factness.  It was half-past nine o’clock.  Nothing had happened yet, at any rate.  Beside her, Carlisle had more difficulty with her breakfast, hampered by her continuing mind’s-eye picture of Jack Dalhousie, lying on his back on a floor somewhere.  Might it be that, as this horror made telling so much harder, it also altered the whole necessity?  There were plenty of arguments of mamma’s to that effect....

“Mr. Heth got off all right, Moses?” demanded that resolute lady.  “Take some more tea, Cally.  You must really try to eat something, my child—­”

“I have eaten—­a great deal,” said Cally.  And pushing back her chair then, she added:  “I think I—­I’ll try to rest a little while, mamma.  I feel—­tired after the trip.”

“Do!” said mamma, further encouraged.  “Sleep a little if you can, my dear.  It’s just what you need....”