Breakfast was now over; the train-boy was exchanging a few witticisms with the pea-nut vender of the station, a brakeman sparred playfully with the baggage porter, and a pallid telegraph operator looked on from his window with interest. Meanwhile the conductor, in his stiff official cap, pared a small apple with the same air of fixed melancholy and inward sarcasm which he gave to all his duties, large and small; when it was eaten, he threw the core with careful precision at a passing pig, looked at his watch, and called out, suddenly and sternly, "All aboard!" The train moved on. It was nine o'clock. At ten there came into the car a figure Anne knew--Ward Heathcote. CHAPTER XIX. "Man is a bundle of contradictions, tied together with fancies."--PERSIAN PROVERB. "The might of one fair face sublimes my love, For it hath weaned my heart from low desires. Nor death I heed, nor purgatorial fires. Forgive me if I can not turn away From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven, For they are guiding stars, benignly given To tempt my footsteps to the upward way." --MICHAEL ANGELO. Dire was the wrath of Helen Lorrington when, having carefully filled the measure of her lost sleep, she sent a little note across to Anne, and answer was returned that Miss Douglas was gone. Mrs. Lorrington, with compliments to Miss Vanhorn, then begged (on a card) to be informed _where_ Miss Douglas was gone. Miss Vanhorn, with compliments to Mrs. Lorrington (also on a card), returned answer that she did not know. Mrs. Lorrington, deeply grieved to disturb Miss Vanhorn a second time, then requested to be favored with Miss Douglas's address. Miss Vanhorn, with assurances that it was no disturbance, but always a pleasure to oblige Mrs. Lorrington, replied that she did not possess it. Then Helen waited until the old coupé rolled away for an afternoon drive, its solitary occupant inside, her profile visible between the two closed glass windows like an object mounted for a microscope, and going across, beguiled the mild Bessmer to tell all she knew. This was not much; but the result was great anger in Helen's mind, and a determination to avenge the harsh deed. Bessmer did not know causes, but she knew actions. Anne had been sent away in disgrace, the maid being forbidden to know even the direction the lonely traveller had taken. Helen, quick to solve riddles, solved this, at least as far as one side of it was concerned, and the quick, partially correct guesses of a quick-witted woman are often, by their very nearness, more misleading than any others. Mr. Dexter had been with Anne during the evening of the ball; probably he had asked her to be his wife. Anne, faithful to her engagement, had refused him; and Miss Vanhorn, faithful to her cruel nature, had sent her away in disgrace. And when Helen learned that Mr. Dexter had gone also--gone early in the morning before