arlotte had naturally a
somewhat pessimistic turn of mind, and her imagination was active.
She imagined many things; she even imagined the actual cause of
Carroll's detention, among others, that he had slipped on the ice and
injured himself. The falling of the boy on her way to the six-o'clock
train had directly swerved her fancy in that direction. But she
imagined everything. That was only one of many casualties. The train
was a little late. She stood staring down the track at the unswerving
signal-lights, watching for the head-light of the locomotive, and it
seemed to her quite certain that there had been an accident on that
train. A thought struck her, and she went into the waiting-room and
asked the ticket-agent if the train was very late. The agent was
quite a young man, and he looked at her with a covert masculine
coquettishness as he replied, but she was oblivious of that. All she
thought of was that, if there had been an accident on the line and
the train was late on that account, he would surely be apt to know.
Her heart was beating so fast that she trembled; but he said ten
minutes, and said nothing about an accident, and she was reassured.
She turned to go, after thanking him, and he volunteered further
information.

"There is a freight ahead delaying the train," he said.

"Oh, thank you," replied Charlotte. Then she went out on the platform
again and watched for the head-light of the locomotive, staring down
the track past the twinkle of the signal-lights. Suddenly it flashed
into sight far off, but she saw it. She waited. Soon she heard the
train. A gateman crossed the tracks from the in-station, padlocking
the gates carefully after him. A baggage-master drew a trunk to the
edge of the platform. A few passengers came out of the waiting-room.

Charlotte waited, and the train came majestically around the curve
below the station. She moved along as it came up, keeping her eyes on
the cars. She seemed to have eyes with facets like a cut diamond. It
was really as if she saw all the car doors at once. But she moved
with a strange stiffness, and could not feel her hands nor feet; her
heart beat so fast and thick that it shook her like the pulse of an
engine. She moved along, and she saw every passenger who alighted.
Then the train steamed out of the station with slowly gathering
speed, and her father had not come on it.

Charlotte, when she actually realized the fact, the possibility of
which had seemed incre