"It's not the best; it's the worst," contradicted Dame Bell. "Not but what it may be as well if you do go. I'm ashamed of the neighbours seeing you can be so silly and superstitious. The train does not get into Falmouth till night-time." "Oh yes, it does," said Rosaline, anxiously: "it gets in quite early enough. Why, mother, I shall be at Aunt Pellet's soon after dark." And she crossed the kitchen with a quicker step than had been seen since that past miserable Tuesday night, and opened the staircase-door. "And suppose your father does _not_ come home first?" debated Mrs. Bell, not quite pleased with the tacit leave she had given. "How will you reconcile yourself to going away in the uncertainty, Rose?" Rose did not answer. She only ran up the stairs, shutting the door behind her. "What in the world does ail the child?" exclaimed Dame Bell, considerably put out. "It's my belief the fright has turned her head. Until now she has always laughed at such things." But Mrs. Bell made no further opposition to the journey. A discerning woman in most kinds of illness, she recognized the fact that change of some sort might be necessary for Rosaline. Still Bell did not return, and still the day went on. In the afternoon Rosaline was ready to start, with a bandbox and handbag. Nancy Tomson had volunteered to accompany her to the station. "I might perhaps have managed the walk to the train; I don't know; it's a goodish step there and back," said Dame Bell, as Rosaline stood before her, to say good-bye. "But you see, child, I want to wait in for your father. I shouldn't like him to find an empty house on his return." Rosaline burst into a fit of sobbing, and laid hold of her mother as if seeking protection from some visible terror. And once again Mrs. Bell was puzzled, and could not make her out at all. "Oh, mother dear, take care of yourself! And forgive me for all the ill I have ever done. Forgive, forgive me!" "Goodness bless me, child, there's nothing to forgive that I know of!" testily cried Dame Bell, not accustomed to this sort of sensational leave-taking. "I shall take care of myself; never fear. Mind you take care of _your_self, Rose: those steam railways are risky things to travel by: and give my love to your aunt and my respects to Pellet." "And we hed better be going," put in Nancy Tomson, who had put on her Sunday cloak and bonnet for the occasion. "They trains don't wait for nobody." They were in ample time for this one: perhaps Rosaline had taken care of that: arriving, in fact, twenty minutes too soon. Rosaline entered it when it came up, and was steamed away. In returning, Nancy Tomson saw Frank Raynor. He was on horseback; riding along very leisurely. "Good-day," said he, nodding to her in passing. "Been out gallivanting?" he added in his light way. "I heve been a-seeing Rosaline Bell off by one o' they trains, sir," answered the woman. And Frank checked his horse as he heard it and sat as still as a statue.