lare it impossible her father should have been
on the train, but he urged the extreme improbability.

Elbridge and his wife passed them, driving rapidly in Simpson's booby,
which Adeline had ordered for their use at the funeral; and when she got
into the house Elbridge was waiting there for her. He began at once;
"Miss Northwick, I don't believe but what your father's staid over at
Springfield for something. He was talkin' to me last week about some
hosses there--"

"Isn't he at the Mills?" she demanded sharply.

Elbridge gave his hat a turn on his hand, before he looked up. "Well,
no, he hain't been, yet--"

Adeline made no sound, but she sank down as a column of water sinks.

At the confusion of movements and voices that followed, Suzette came to
the door of the library, and looked wonderingly into the hall, where
this had happened, with a book clasped over her finger. "What in the
world is the matter?" she asked with a sort of sarcastic amaze, at sight
of Elbridge lifting something from the floor.

"Don't be alarmed, Miss Suzette," said Mr. Wade, "Your sister seems a
little faint, and--"

"It's this sickening heat!" cried the girl, running to the door, and
setting it wide. "It suffocates me when I come in from the outside. I'll
get some water." She vanished and was back again instantly, stooping
over Adeline to wet her forehead and temples. The rush of the cold air
began to revive her. She opened her eyes, and Suzette said, severely,
"What has come over you, Adeline? Aren't you well?" and as Adeline
answered nothing, she went on: "I don't believe she knows where she is.
Let us get her into the library on the lounge."

She put her strength with that of the young clergyman, and they carried
Adeline to the lounge; Suzette dispatched Elbridge, hanging helplessly
about, for some of the women. He sent the parlor-maid, and did not come
back.

Adeline kept looking at her sister as if she were afraid of her. When
she was recovered sufficiently to speak, she turned her eyes on the
clergyman, and said huskily, "Tell her."

"Your sister has had a little fright," he began; and with his gentle
eyes on the girl's he went on to deal the pain that priests and
physicians must give. "There's the report of a railroad accident in the
morning paper, and among the passengers--the missing--was one of the
name of Northwick--"

"But father is at the Mills!"

"Your sister had telegraphed before the funeral, to make sure--and wor