He had not dared to stay to see his mother. It had been difficult and bitter enough to tell her the fatal secret of his unhappy marriage. To let her know the deeper humiliation in which he found himself involved would just now be impossible. It would be time enough to reveal this additional misery when the search proved successful; if it failed---- If it failed! “I fancied I could not be more wretched,” he thought. “I was mistaken. Could it be possible to wring a confession from Guiscardini? Alas, no! Her nature is absolutely callous. She would elect to be bound to me rather than to my servant. How am I to face my servant--how am I to tell my wretched story? My pride is trailed in the dust. My name, given to my charge free from spot or taint, is stained and splashed with shame.” It was night before he reached Holston. Arrived there, he engaged the last rickety old fly left within the precincts of the station, and drove to the barracks. The vehicle had lumbered its way almost to the gates, when Captain Desfrayne, happening to look from the open window, to ascertain how far it had proceeded, saw, by the long, slanting rays cast from the lamps, a female figure, draped in black, closely veiled, hurrying along the road toward the station. The mien, the step, even the somber robes, seemed somehow familiar to Paul Desfrayne. He put his hands to his forehead in horror and despair. “Great heavens! It is impossible!” he cried. “Am I going out of my senses? Is this figure conjured up by my disordered brain, or is it--can it be--Lucia Guiscardini? It _cannot_ be--and yet--and yet it is her very walk--her insolent bearing.” The wild idea that it might be her spirit for an instant crossed his mind--a pardonable notion in the excited state of his brain, for the swiftly gliding form looked spectral in the blackness of the summer night, seeming more shadowy from being draped in such dark vesture. Recovering from the first shock, however, he hurriedly stopped the vehicle, ordering the coachman to wait for him, and ran back in the direction the misty form had traversed. He looked from side to side, and even struck with his cane the bushes that grew by the edge of the road on either hand, but no sign betrayed that any human creature besides himself and the old man seated on the box of the fly were within miles. Distracted by contending feelings, he went hastily back to the spot where he had left the vehicle. The driver, an old and stupid man, was almost asleep, and stolidly awaited the return of his fare, without troubling to guess why he had so suddenly alighted. “Did you see any one pass just now?” demanded Captain Desfrayne excitedly. “No, sur, I can’t say I did,” replied the driver. “Not a woman?” “Not a soul.” “A woman dressed in black, walking very quickly toward the station?” “I see no one at all, sur. Be there onything wrong at all?” “I can’t tell. I hope not. You think, if any one passed along this road, they must go to the station?”