A great tear fell on the word “Connie” and blotted it, but she could not rewrite the note, and, folding it, she directed it to Kenneth, and taking it to his room placed it where he would see it at once. There was not much time to lose if she would take the three o’clock train, and she accepted Kitty’s offer to help her pack, while Mrs. Stannard, half distraught with the suddenness of Connie’s going, kept wondering why she need take everything, if she were coming back. And Connie could not talk, for the swelling in her throat and the tears she was trying to keep down. She was very white, and there was a drawn look about her mouth and an expression in her eyes which troubled Kitty, and when everything was done and they were waiting for the carriage which was to take Connie to the station, she put her arm caressingly around her neck and said: “Is it some trouble, Connie, and can I help you?” “No; oh, no. You least of all,” was Connie’s answer, and putting her head on Kitty’s shoulder, she cried aloud for a moment, then lifting up her head, she said, with an attempt to smile: “Excuse me for the weakness. It is like leaving home, where I have been so happy. I must cry a little.” Mrs. Stannard, Kitty and the baby went to the station with her in Kitty’s brougham, with the coachman in livery and the blooded horses. Could she have had her choice, she would have preferred going in a wheelbarrow to this fine turnout of the man who had so deceived her. But there was no alternative. Deacon Stannard was away, and she must go with Kitty, who clung to her as if she were her sister, and whose tears were hot on her cheek when she at last said good-bye. “Too bad you can’t meet Harry; but you saw his picture, didn’t you?” Kitty said. “Yes, I saw it,” Connie gasped, springing on the platform of the car so as to hear no more of Harry, whose baby, held high up in Kitty’s arms, was the last thing she saw clearly as the train took her away. CHAPTER XVI KENNETH AND HARRY