Eglah's calm, listless indifference had given place to feverish impatience in expediting all preparations incident to the journey, and the perplexed and anxious little woman who watched her movements was rejoiced when business of importance called her to Y----, where Mr. Whitfield was confined by gout to his room. Since the day at Calvary House, Eliza had observed a marked change in Eglah; the wistful, hopeless expression had vanished, and proud defiance settled on her face. While tortured by suspense, she had yielded to the tender yearning of her heart; but the sight of Mr. Herriott, safe, well, and strong, contentedly planning a future in which he assigned no niche to her, stung her womanly pride, intensified her longing to evade forever the possibility of meeting the man who had so completely ignored and repudiated her. Some delay in the preparation of papers Mr. Whitfield required her to sign kept her in Y---- longer than she had intended. He very carefully wrote her will, in which, following the trend of her grandmother's sympathies, she bequeathed Nutwood and adjoining lands as a Maurice Home "to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in the State." To Vivian and Maurice relatives of her own mother, who refused association with Marcia after her marriage, and whom Eglah had always avoided, she gave one plantation--Canebrake. To Mrs. Mitchell Willow Creek Bend was left, in grateful recognition of her loving care; and all personal property, stocks, and bonds were devised to the vestry of her father's church, for the erection and maintenance of a memorial Chapter House. Business concluded, she telegraphed that on the 17th, at eight P.M., she would reach Maurice, and wished Mrs. Mitchell to meet her with the trap. At nine o'clock on the morning of the 17th, the overseer's wife, desiring to avoid the passenger train, went in the caboose of a local freight to Sunflower. It was an "excursion" day in honor of the opening of a Masonic hall just completed, and many strangers strolled about the village awaiting the hour fixed for the dedication ceremonies. At one o'clock, when the fast southbound train paused long enough to deliver the mail-bag, Eliza stood on the little platform, watching the line of dusty cars. As a tall figure, valise in hand, stepped from the Pullman sleeper, she did not promptly recognize the clean-shaven face, wearing grey goggles. Handing his valise to a negro porter sitting on the baggage truck, he glanced about him, and approached the little woman, who was trembling with suspense. "How are you, Mrs. Mitchell?" He held out his hand. "Oh, Mr. Herriott! I was not sure it was you. Thank God! I was so afraid you would not come." He took off the goggles and dropped them in his coat pocket. "I dare say these glasses partly disguise, but snow-blindness left my eyes rather sensitive, and I wore them as guard against railroad dust."