“Warm yourself, my darling, while I try to secure seats in the parlor car.”
“It is very unfortunate, indeed,” said the conductor, “but the Pullman sleeper is crowded. Only one berth was vacant when they came into the station, and it has just been engaged by a lady en route for New York.”
The lady had indeed just taken possession of her berth, brushing haughtily past without taking notice of either. Neither did Arthur notice her, or he would have seen with surprise that it was his own mother. Deeply chagrined that he could not get quarters for Cinthia in the parlor car, he returned to her side, and they spent the hours very happily till morning.
CHAPTER XIII.
OH, WHAT A NIGHT!
All unconscious of the deception that had been practiced on him, Everard Dawn drove briskly back to his home, making no effort to restore Cinthia, and, in fact, rather hoping that her unconsciousness would last until he could place her in Mrs. Flint’s care. In common with most men, he had a holy horror of sensational scenes, and shrunk from hearing his daughter’s reproaches when she should revive and find herself so cruelly sundered from her lover.
So he made haste to reach home, and his thoughts on the way were most sad and bitter, for in this man’s past was a tragedy of sorrow that might have driven a weaker man to cut loose the bonds of unbearable life with his own hands and hurl himself recklessly into the great unknown future beyond.
With his return to his sister’s house, everything had rushed back upon him like the swell of some great river, and seared wounds had been opened afresh, bleeding in secret beneath his outward calmness. However handsome and prosperous he appeared to the outward eye, no man could have envied Everard Dawn, having looked once into his tortured heart and seen its secrets laid bare.
Mrs. Flint was watching and listening for him, and as soon as the sleigh stopped, she seized a lantern, and bundling herself in a shawl, rushed out to the gate.
Springing out and fastening the lines to a post, he said, triumphantly:
“I overtook them, Rebecca, and Cinthia fainted with fear. I brought her back in that condition, thus escaping a scene in the sleigh. I will carry her in, and you can revive her at your leisure, while I return the sleigh to the stable.”