contented love.  In so dark and dreary a world, what a mad act it was to fly from the only happiness life offered!  What a strange idea to seek safety by refusing the only protection worth having!  Love was all in all!  Esther had never before felt herself so helpless as in the face of this outer darkness, and if her lover had now been there to claim her, she would have dropped into his arms as unresistingly as a tired child.

As the night wore on, the darkness and desolation became intolerable, and she shut them out, only to find herself suffocated by the imprisonment of her sleeping-berth.  Hour after hour dragged on; the little excitement of leaving Albany was long past, and the train was wandering through the dullness of Central New York, when at last a faint suspicion of dim light appeared in the landscape, and Esther returned to her window.  If any thing could be drearier than the blackness of night, it was the grayness of dawn, which had all the cold terror of death and all the grim repulsiveness of life joined in an hour of despair.  Esther could now see the outlines of farm-houses as the train glided on; snow-laden roofs and sheds; long stretches of field with fences buried to their top rails in sweeping snow-drifts; in the houses, lights showed that toil had begun again; smoke rose from the chimneys; figures moved in the farm-yards; a sleigh could be seen on a decided road; the world became real, prosaic, practical, mechanical, not worth struggling about; a mere colorless, passionless, pleasureless grayness.  As the mystery vanished, the pain passed and the brain grew heavy.  Esther’s eyelids drooped, and she sank at last into a sleep so sound that there was hardly need for Catherine to stand sentry before her berth and frown the car into silence.  The sun was high above the horizon; the sky was bright and blue; the snowy landscape flashed with the sparkle of diamonds, when Esther woke, and it was with a cry of pleasure that she felt her spirits answer the sun.

Meanwhile her flight was no secret.  As the train that carried her off drew out of the great station into the darkness for its long journey of three thousand miles, two notes were delivered to gentlemen only a few squares away.  Strong at his club received one from Mrs. Murray:  “We all start for Clifton at nine o’clock.  Come to-morrow and bring a companion if you can.  We need to be amused.”  The Reverend Stephen Hazard received the other note, which was still more brief, but long enough to strike him with panic; for it contained two words:  “Good-by!  Esther.”

No sooner did Strong receive his missive than he set himself in active motion.  Wharton, who commonly dined at the club, was so near that Strong had only to pass the note over to him.  Whether Wharton was still suffering from the shock of his wife’s appearance, or disappearance, or whether he was on the look-out for some chance to see again his friend Catherine, or whether he found it pleasanter to take