o. Gladys
felt that the reaction was ominous as Lillian held the receiver with a
hand that shook as with palsy. All had feared the usual delay, but while
they were still in the hall the bell jangled, and the night-clerk of the
hotel in Crystal responded--little to a cheering effect to the listener,
though of this he was unaware. Mr. Bayne had already set out, he stated
glibly. He must be five miles away by this time (the clerk evidently
thought that he pleased his interlocutor by his report of the
precipitation with which Mr. Bayne had obeyed her summons). Mr. Bayne was
a good judge of horse-flesh, and the clerk would venture to say that he
had never handled the ribbons over a higher-couraged animal than the one
he had between the shafts to-night. Pretty well matched, horse and
driver--ha! ha! ha! If anything could get through the ice-storm to-night,
it was those two! Oh, yes, it had been snowing hard at Crystal for two
hours past.

So he rang off jauntily, fancying that Julian Bayne's presence was much
desired at some house-party or romantic elopement, or other lightsome
diversion in the upper country.

"How could I? How could I, Gladys?" Lillian said again and again, white,
wild-eyed, and haggard, so limp and nerveless that she could not have
reached the library had not the other ladies supported her between them,
half carrying her to her reclining chair. "You both think I was wrong,
don't you?" She looked up at them with agonized eyes, pleading for
reassurance.

"Well, dear, time is not an element of importance just now, it would
seem, to be considered against other disadvantages--so many weeks having
already passed. A day or two more would not have mattered," returned Mrs.
Marable, fatally candid.

Once again the blast drove against the windows with elemental frenzy,
shaking the sashes, that being hung loosely, rattled in their casings. No
more the dark, glossy spaces between the long red curtains reflected
fragmentary bits of the bright, warm room within, or gave dull glimpses
of the bosky grove and the clouded sky without. The glass was now blankly
white, opaque, sheeted with ice, and only the wind gave token how the
storm raged. It was indeed a wild night for a drive of fifty miles
through a mountain wilderness, over roads sodden with the late rains, the
deep mire corrugated into ruts by the wheels of travel and now frozen
stiff.

But the roads might well be hopelessly lost under drifts of snow, and the
wo