"We did not leave the church. Grandfather evidently took for granted that Rose had left on account of some trifling indisposition, and he is not easily moved by women's ailments, you know. So we stayed out the services and the sermon. When we returned to the hotel we found that Rose had retired to her room suffering from a severe attack of neuralgic headache, as she said."
"What did you think?"
"I thought she might have been suddenly attacked by maddening pain, which had given the wild look to her eyes; but the next day I had good reason to change my opinion as to the cause of her strange demeanor."
"What was that?"
"We all left the hotel at an early hour to take the train for West Point. Mrs. Stillwater seemed to have quite recovered from her illness. We had arrived at the depot and received our tickets, and were waiting at the rear of a great crowd at the railway gate, till it should be opened to let us pass to our train. I was standing on the right of my grandfather, and Rose on my right. Suddenly a man looked around. He was a great Wall Street broker who had dealings with your firm. Seeing grandfather, he spoke to him heartily, and then begged to introduce the gentleman who was with him. And then and there he presented the Dean of Olivet to Mr. Rockharrt, who, after a few words of polite greeting, presented the dean to me, and turned to find Rose Stillwater."
"Well! Well!"
"She was gone. She had vanished from the crowd at the railway gate as swiftly, as suddenly, and as incomprehensibly as she had vanished from the church. After looking about him a little, my grandfather said that she had got pressed away from us by the crowd, but that she knew her way and would take care of herself and follow us to the train all right. But when the gates were opened we did not see her, nor did we find her on the train, though Mr. Rockharrt walked up and down through the twenty cars looking for her, and feeling sure that we should find her. The train had started, so we had to go on without her. My grandfather concluded that she had accidentally missed it and would follow by the next one."
"And what did you think, Cora?"
"I thought that, for some antecedent and mysterious reason, she had fled from before the face of the Dean of Olivet at the railway station, even as she had done at the church."