They changed carriages at dawn, where, she did not know, nor where they were taking her. She looked for hours at the flying country and could not tell, till, as the train stopped, great, black letters on a white sign-board caught her eye. “Blackpool,” she read in the veiled sunshine of the February morning, and remembered it was here she had first seen the haggard, listless-eyed man who had been her evil genius. “We change here,” said Erle, rising and not noticing her as he leaned out of the carriage window to glance at the station, which was fuller than he liked. But he was reassured by the look of the crowd, who were excursionists. Neither he nor his father saw her glance at the lining of the hat they had bought for her when they landed. “Pearce, Plymouth,” was stamped on it. They had come all the way across England here; they must have a reason. Were they taking her back to the workhouse at St. Anne’s? She got out as quietly as if she neither knew nor cared, but half-way across the station she gasped and stood still. Opposite her, with her back to her, but unmistakable, was Mother Felicitas, Sister De Sales at her side! They stood, as religious women do, with their eyes cast down; they had not seen her. “Mother Felicitas!” she said, with a horrible fear, not for herself, but for the vengeance that would slip from her if the superior saw and claimed her. An instinct like an animal told her she would get no credence of her tale in the convent. “Go on,” said Erceldonne in her ear furiously. “Go on!” The girl faltered, almost fell, and at Erle’s wondering exclamation Mother Felicitas looked up. Her terror was before her eyes! For one instant she stood speechless. Before she could move, Beryl Corselas had been hustled into a train that was already moving out of the station. “The reverend mother has overtaxed her strength,” said Sister De Sales quickly to a porter. “Water, please, and I will get her to a cab.” She was short-sighted, and had seen nothing. If she had, she would merely have marveled that the reverend mother should lean heavily against her in sudden faintness at the sight of a runaway schoolgirl. CHAPTER XXXIV. A LITTLE GOLD. “I couldn’t help it,” said Andria, “they were too quick for me. I am slow-witted. I see now it was madness to have sent you away, and worse to send that dreadful old man after you. He might have saved us.” “How long have I been laid up?” Heriot, pretty white and bloodless, lay propped with pillows on the sofa; he was stiff, and his wound was painful, but his mind was clear. “How did I get her ring?” for the green beryl glowed on his finger. “Not a week,” replied Andria wretchedly, for by now the yacht must have reached England. “I told you every two or three times, but it didn’t seem to reach you.” “It all seemed a part of the pain, I thought--‘beryls bring bad dreams,’” he quoted. “I wish this was one.”