bably get
something to eat somewhere or even come back by train. It isn't his
night at the school."

At six o'clock Lydia began to realise that if Esther were going that day
she would take the next train. It would not be at all likely that she
took the "midnight" and got into New York jaded in the early morning.
She put on her hat and coat, and was going softly out when Anne called
to her:

"Lyd, if you've got a cold you stay in the house."

Lydia shut the door behind her and sped down the path. She thought she
should die--Lydia had frequent crises of dying when the consummations of
life eluded her--if she did not know whether Esther was going. Yet she
would not tell Jeff until it was too late, even if he were there on the
spot and if he blamed her forever for not telling him. This time she
stayed in a sheltering corner of the station, and not many minutes
before the train a dark figure passed her, Esther, veiled, carrying her
hand-bag, and walking fast. Lydia could have touched her arm, but
Esther, in her desire of secrecy, was trying to see no one. She, too,
stopped, in a deeper shadow at the end of the building. Either she had
her ticket or she was depending on the last minute for getting it.
Lydia, with a leap of conjecture concluded, and rightly, that she had
sent Sophy for it in advance. The local train came in, bringing the
workmen from the bridge, still being repaired up the track, and Lydia
shrank back a little as they passed her. And among them, finishing a
talk he had taken up on the train, was, incredibly, Jeff. Lydia did not
parley with her dubieties. She slipped after them in the shadow, came up
to him and touched him on the arm.

"Jeff!" she said.

He turned, dropped away from the men and stood there an instant looking
at her. Lydia's heart was racing. She had never felt such excitement in
her life. It seemed to her she should never get her breath again.

"What's the matter?" said Jeff. "Father all right?"

"She's going to run away with Reardon," said Lydia, her teeth clicking
on the words and biting some of them in two. "He went this afternoon.
They're going to meet."

"How do you know?"

Neither of them, in the course of their quick sentences, mentioned
Esther's name.

"Madame Beattie told me. Look over by that truck. Don't let her see
you."

Jeff turned slightly and saw the figure by the truck.

"She's going to take this train," said Lydia. "She's going to Reardon. O
Jeff, it's wicked.