"The dead calm awes me with its awful stillness,
And anxious doubts and fears disturb my breast.
I only ask some little wave of language
To stir this vast infinitude of rest.
"Too deep the language which the spirit utters;
Too vast the knowledge which my soul hath stirred.
Send some white ship across the Sea of Silence,
And interrupt its utterance with a word."
It was two months now since they had gone upon the road, but not a word had Geraldine received. It seemed to her as if the past days were a dream, so different was her life now—all whirl, confusion, and excitement.
Once she had thought this would be charming. Now she found it the reverse.
How glad she was to hear that the company would go back to New York in time for Christmas. She was so tired of the West, where they had been all these weeks.
When they were on their homeward way, they stopped over for a night at a pretty West Virginia town a few hundred miles from New York.
They had come straight through from Chicago, and the stop-over was very agreeable to the weary members of the company.
They arrived in the afternoon, and the tired travelers, after resting a while at their romantic hotel on the banks of the beautiful Greenbrier River, set out to explore the little town of Alderson, first hurrying to the post-office for their letters, which they expected to be awaiting them there.
Geraldine did not expect any mail, poor girl! She waited at the door while Clifford Standish went in and came out with a little budget for himself.
"Nothing for you, Geraldine. It seems that Miss Carroll is still unforgiving," he laughed, without noting the sensitive quiver of her scarlet lips.