There was one among them, though, who seemed to rise above it all; a plain-looking woman with an unfashionable bonnet, and a face like a benediction.  She drew a little worn Bible from her satchel, and read it awhile by the dim light.  Ruey wondered if she did not get something from that book that made her patient when others were not—­that sent her to relieve the tired mother, by caring for the fretful baby a long time; and when another, a sad mother, unable longer to control her grief, moaned out, “My child will die before I can get to her,” this woman was the one who went to her with words of comfort.  Ruey’s poor perturbed heart envied that calm face.  She felt well-nigh distracted, not so much at the fact that she was cold and hungry, but what would Philip think when he returned and found her gone?  No one knew where; not even a neighbour had the least intimation of her whereabouts.  What a night of horrors he must have had!  Oh, to be obliged to sit there and wait when she felt like flying!  She heard the woman with the Bible whisper to the poor mother, “Pray; that will surely help you.”  “Perhaps it would help me,” thought Ruey.  She was not used to praying, but she needed help.  So she put her tired head down, and whispered a request for deliverance.

What did Philip do?  He essayed to walk into his house.  The door was locked, and there was no response to his repeated rings.  He tried other doors with no better success; then he visited his neighbours.  They could give him no clue.  He came back and stood in a dazed way on his own steps, looking up and down the street.  He went down into the town and peered into the stores, but no Ruey.  He called upon her most intimate friends—­they didn’t know she was absent.  He racked his brain; was she out to tea? but she expected him home that very day.  As the evening advanced he began to be thoroughly alarmed.  Perhaps she had met with some horrible fate in her own home.  He forced the door and entered.  The pretty rooms were in exquisite order.  He searched wildly about for some scrap of paper that might explain the mystery.  Wherever she was, she had evidently been gone some time; the fires were dead and cold.  He rushed down into the town again and consulted detectives, who suggested elopement as an explanation.  Whereupon his anger rose to a white heat, and he left them.

Another idea struck him.  Joanna must know something of this strange affair.  She lived in the country.  The polar wave had, by this time, reached that region.  In the face of a blinding storm Mr. Thorne drove at a rapid pace to Joanna’s home.  The sleepy girl, when roused, could at first give but an exasperating “Nix” to his eager questions.  Finally from her broken English he gathered that her mistress had gone away on the cars; had directed her to come back to her duties that very afternoon.  She did so, only to find the house closed.