malady had seized him, and he was calling himself a fool that he
had been so blind to its symptoms. Life without the sunshine of
Elizabeth's presence was a problem he had never faced. That he and she
belonged to each other since the beginning of time had always been his
deep-rooted conviction. And now he had lost her, and had realized it
for the first time on the very day when he had found the true glorious
meaning of life. His senses were numbed by the irony of his fate. He
was conscious only of the fact that he had received a blow, and that he
must move swiftly and more swiftly. He was whirling round a corner
when he heard his name called sharply. He stopped short in mingled joy
and fear. Someone was crossing the street towards him with headlong
speed. It was she herself!--Elizabeth--coming to him with outstretched
hands. He went swiftly to meet her.

"Lizzie! What is it?" he cried, catching the hands in his.

"Oh, Charles Stuart!" she cried with a sob of relief, "come--quick!
I've found Eppie!"

CHAPTER XVII

DAWN CLOUDS

"And so you see; Aunt Margaret, I could not possibly have acted
otherwise. I had to leave it all."

Miss Gordon sat a trifle straighter in her stiff chair. "I fear I must
confess I cannot see it as you do at all, Elizabeth. You say yourself
that Mrs. Jarvis would have been willing to pay Eppie's expenses up
here, or support her in the city, and why you should have made her the
cause of such an eccentric act I cannot understand."

Elizabeth looked out of the window in silent misery. Before her, Tom
Teeter's fields stretched away bare and brown, with patches of snow in
the hollows and the fence-corners. Rain had fallen the night before, a
cold March rain, freezing as it fell, and clothing every object of the
landscape in an icy coat that glittered and blazed in the morning
light. But the sun and the fresh wind, dancing up from the south and
bringing a fragrant hint of pussy-willows from the creek banks, were
causing this fairy world of glass to dissolve. Such a glorious world
as it was seemed too radiant and unreal to last. There was a sound of
pouring water and a rattle as of shattered glass as the airy things
tumbled to pieces.

The fences along Champlain's Road and the lane were made of polished
silver rails that gave back the sunbeams in blinding flashes. The
roofs of the houses and barns were covered with glass, the trees were
loaded with diamonds. From the ea