that she had not permitted Aunt Barbara to write, or
herself taken any measures for communicating with him. He should never
know how near she had been to him, or guess ever so remotely of the
anguish she was enduring, as, only a few feet removed from him, she
suffered, in part, all the pain and sorrow she had brought upon him.
Then, as she remembered the new house fitted for the bride, she said:

"I must see that house. I must know just what is in store for my rival.
No one knows me in Davenport. Richard is not at home, and there is no
chance for my being recognized."

With this decision came a vague feeling akin to hope that possibly the
story was false--that after all there was no rival, no divorce. At all
events, she should know for a certainty by going to Davenport; and with
every nerve stretched to its utmost tension, Ethie arose from her bed
and packed her trunk quietly and quickly, and then going to the office,
surprised the clerk with the announcement that she wished to leave on
the ten-o'clock train. She had received news which made her going so
suddenly imperative, she said to him, and to the physician, whom she
called upon next, and whose strong arguments against her leaving that
night almost overcame her. But Ethie's will conquered at last, and when
the train from the East came in she stood upon the platform at the
station, her white face closely veiled, and her heart throbbing with the
vague doubts which began to assail her as to whether she were really
doing a wise and prudent thing in going out alone and unprotected to the
home she had no right to enter, and where she was not wanted.

CHAPTER XXXVI

IN DAVENPORT

Hot, and dusty, and tired, and sick, and utterly hopeless and wretched,
Ethie looked drearily out from the windows of her room at the hotel,
whither she had gone on her first arrival in Davenport. Her head seemed
bursting as she stood tying her bonnet before the mirror, and drawing on
her gloves, she glanced wistfully at the inviting-looking bed, feeling
strongly tempted to lie down there among the pillows and wait till she
was rested before she went out in that broiling August sun upon her
strange errand. But a haunting presentiment of what the dizziness and
pain in her head and temples portended urged her to do quickly what she
had to do; so with another gulp of the ice water she had ordered, and
which only for a moment cooled her feverish heat, she went from her room
into the hall, w