For a space he remained in his bent and staring attitude, trying to pierce the gloom into which she had disappeared.  As he drew back from the window, wondering what she must think of him, his eyes fell to the seat where she had been sitting, and he saw that she had left something behind.

It was a very thin package, done up in a bit of newspaper and tied with a red string.  He picked it up and turned it over in his hands.  It was five or six inches in width and perhaps eight in length, and was not more than half an inch in thickness.  The newspaper in which the object was wrapped was worn until the print was almost obliterated.

Again he looked out through the window.  Was it a trick of his eyes, he wondered, or did he see once more that pale and haunting face in the gloom just beyond the lampglow?  His fingers closed a little tighter upon the thin packet in his hand.  At least he had found an excuse; if she was still there—­if he could find her—­he had an adequate apology for going to her.  She had forgotten something; it was simply a matter of courtesy on his part to return it.  As he alighted into the half foot of snow on the platform he could have given no other reason for his action.  His mind could not clarify itself; it had no cohesiveness of purpose or of emotion at this particular juncture.  It was as if a strange and magnetic undertow were drawing him after her.  And he obeyed the impulse.  He began seeking for her, with the thin packet in his hand.

CHAPTER IV

David followed where he fancied he had last seen the woman’s face and caught himself just in time to keep from pitching over the edge of the platform.  Beyond that there was a pit of blackness.  Surely she had not gone there.

Two or three of the bells were still clanging, but with abated enthusiasm; from the dimly lighted platform, grayish-white in the ghostly flicker of the oil lamps, the crowd of hungry passengers was ebbing swiftly in its quest of food and drink; a last half-hearted bawling of the virtue to be found in the “hot steak an’ liver’n onions at the Royal Alexandry” gave way to a comforting silence—­a silence broken only by a growing clatter of dishes, the subdued wheezing of the engines, and the raucous voice of a train-man telling the baggage-man that the hump between his shoulders was not a head but a knot kindly tied there by his Creator to keep him from unravelling.  Even the promise of a fight—­at least of a blow or two delivered in the gray gloom of the baggage-man’s door—­did not turn David from his quest.  When he returned, a few minutes later, two or three sympathetic friends were nursing the baggage-man back into consciousness.  He was about to pass the group when some one gripped his arm, and a familiar and joyous chuckle sounded in his ear.  Father Roland stood beside him.

“Dear Father in Heaven, but it was a terrible blow, David!” cried the Little Missioner, his face dancing in the flare of the baggage-room lamps.  “It was a tre_men_dous blow—­straight out from his shoulders like a battering ram, and hard as rock!  It put him to sleep like a baby.  Did you see it?”