And now we will return to the countess and her companions. The horses of their carriage were urged to speed, yet were they barely in time to catch the train, and the party had scarcely taken their seats before it began to move on. Oh, how Annabella longed to give the wings of her own impatience to the lagging engine! How her yearning spirit realized the complaint,— “Miles interminably spread, Seem lengthening as I go!” Night had closed around before the travellers reached the little station which was nearest to the place of their destination,—a small, lonely post at which the train merely stopped for two minutes to suffer the party to alight. “Can any conveyance be procured here?” asked Aumerle of the solitary station official who was assisting to put down their luggage. “No, sir,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “There was a chaise sent here two hours ago for a gentleman who came by last train; nothing of the kind is to be had here, unless it’s ordered aforehand from the town.” “Is that chaise likely to return hither?” “Can’t say, sir,” answered the man. “I believe that it took a doctor and nurse to a place where a nobleman’s lying ill, who was picked up to-day from the sea.” “The sea!” echoed the astonished listeners. “Fallen out of a balloon, as I understand,” said the man. “There was a party of three, and they were all saved by one of our fishing-smacks that was just coming in from a cruise.” “Oh, guide us to the place where they are!” exclaimed the countess. “Can’t leave the station, ma’am,” replied the official, looking with some curiosity and interest on the pale, eager face on which the light of the gas-lamp fell; “besides, I’ve not been long at this place, and don’t know exactly where the cottage lies.” “What are we to do?” exclaimed Ida. “Now I think on it,” said the station-man, slowly, “the doctor asked me when the last train would go back to Exeter to-night. I take it he’s likely to return; and you could have the chaise that brings him.” “When does that train pass?” inquired the vicar. “Within an hour,” replied the man, glancing round at the large clock behind him. “Will not the ladies walk into the waiting-room?—it is better than standing out here on the platform.” “It appears our best course,” said the vicar, addressing the countess, “to await here the return of the doctor, and avail ourselves of the only conveyance that seems likely to call here to-night.” “Oh no, no!” exclaimed Annabella, wildly; “every minute of delay is an age in purgatory! The doctor may never come. Augustine will not suffer him to quit Dashleigh for an hour! I wait for no one; I will try to find my way to the cottage;—I go at once, even if I go alone!”