"Was that a face?" Simeon Piper demanded. "No; I see it must have been an illusion," he added, despondently, once more putting his hand to his head.
The father and daughter exchanged looks of pity.
By this time the cars had got farther off and were less audible. Piper's agitation died away proportionately, and he sank back into his seat.
But the same sort of thing happened on the following day when he heard the distant movement of a train.
"Listen!" he cried to Addie, who was with him. "Don't you hear? It's going to say something. I shall get hold of the idea and find out what is the matter. Listen! listen!"
Then, as before, the hollow rumble diminished, gradually softened to a stir no louder than a sigh, and finally was quite lost. Only the baffled breeze continued its hopeless search among the leafy boughs by the river.
"What is it you think you might hear?" asked Addie, gently.
The strong man looked at her with tears in his eyes.
"A secret, young lady; a secret! I knew it, and now it is gone. It's strange that cars should excite me this way, but something has hurt my brain. You are very kind; and if you go on being so perhaps my mind will get right again."
A week passed. Piper listened each day to the passing trains; sometimes at night too, when he lay alone, and it seemed still more likely that through its relation with this sound the lost clew might disclose itself. But all in vain; he was unable to recover what had escaped him.