He came back to madam with the startling intelligence that Mr. Dalton and his party had left on the early train. “Gone?” almost shrieked Madam Sylvester. “He knew it—he knew what I have told you. I remember how he appeared last night when he met me, and now he has fled to escape me.” Both Paul and Mr. Gustave Sylvester were on their mettle now, and proceeded to ascertain whither Mr. Dalton had gone. The waiter who had served them, and the porter who had assisted in removing their trunks, were interviewed and feed, but neither had noticed the labels on the departing visitors’ baggage, and so their destination was a matter of doubt. But that afternoon madam’s party also bade adieu to Saratoga, their object being to ferret out the hiding-place of Sumner Dalton, and compel him to do an act of justice long delayed. CHAPTER XLI TOM DRAKE’S BEWILDERMENT We have left Earle for a long time in his magnificent loneliness at Wycliffe. But magnificent loneliness it indeed was, for in his great house there was not a soul to whom he could go for either sympathy or cheer. He was surrounded on every hand by everything that almost unlimited wealth could buy; he possessed one of the finest estates in England, and farms and forests in France, which, as yet, he had never seen; he occupied a position second to none save royalty; he had the finest horses and carriages in the county; cattle and hounds of choicest breed; he had all this, and yet he was heart-sick with a bitterness that seemed unbearable. He could interest himself in nothing—he took pleasure in nothing—all his fair domains and riches were like a mockery to him; he never stood in the oriel window that looked out from the center of the main building at Wycliffe, and viewed the broad expanse spread out before him, and beautiful as Eden’s fair gardens, without feeling that he was cursed worse even than Adam and Eve were cursed when driven from Paradise. His beautiful gardens, shining streams stocked with finest trout, broad fields of waving golden grain, the noble park with its grand old trees, God’s most glorious handiwork, all mocked him with their loveliness. It was as if they said to him, “You can have all this—you can revel in everything that serves to make the world bright and beautiful; you can buy and sell, and get gain, add to your stores, and get fame and honor, but after all is told, you must ever carry a desolate heart in your bosom; you can never possess the one jewel worth sevenfold more than all you possess; you can never behold the fair face, dearer than all the world, beaming upon you in your home as you go and come on the round of daily duties.” What did it amount to?—of what value was it all to him if he could not share it with the only woman whom he could ever love?