ute to the dead. The
girl, in her shocked state, considered it unfeeling for her to remain
here enjoying herself with Hugo, as if nothing had happened.
Foolish?--who saw it better than she, Mrs. Heth? But that was Cally,
sweet and good at heart always, yet liable to emotional fits in upset
moments when opposition only made her ill. Let her have her morbid way
to-night, and she would return in twenty-four hours, her own sweet
natural self....

Canning liked it less and less. Was not this clearly a moment when the
strong mind of a man should assert itself over foolish feminine
hysteria?

"How did she happen to get this news just now?" he asked, abruptly. "Who
was it she called up, about what?"

He had lost sight of this point in the general flurry of sensation. It
struck him now just too late to bring results. At the moment, the door
from the bedrooms opened--exactly as it had two hours earlier, only with
what a difference!--and Carlisle appeared on, the threshold, very pale
and subdued, but to her lover's eye never more moving.

"I'm so sorry to bring you into all this trouble, Hugo," she said, in a
strained little voice.... "And when we were having such a
happy time...."

All thought of putting down his foot faded at once from Canning's mind,
obliterated in a wave that went through him, half passion, half pure
tenderness. Indifferent to Mrs. Heth, he advanced and took the girl in
his arms, speaking in a manly way the sympathy with her distress which
rushed up in him at that moment. And then he said words that went with
Carlisle as a comfort all through the night.

"Your trouble is my own, Carlisle. I'm with you in everything now,
happiness or unhappiness. Whatever happens, you know my heart and
strength are yours through all time."

Carlisle, too deeply moved to speak, thanked her lover with a look. The
moment's silence was broken by Mrs. Heth, resolutely blowing her nose.
And then all opportunity for talk was lost in the rush for the train.

* * * * *

To herself she seemed to lie endlessly between sleeping and waking: and
the rhythmic noises of the train sounded a continual cadence,
Dalhousie's unquiet requiem. But she must have fallen sound asleep
without knowing it; for her eyes opened suddenly with a start, and she
was aware of the clanging of bells, the waxing and waning of men's
voices, the hiss of steam and the flaring of yellow lights. Looking out
under the blind, she