Buying a copy of _The Mail_ from a boy, he took a cab to his lodgings. From habit he looked first at the editorials. Turning then to the first page he saw under a modest headline an accurate account of the yesterday’s episode at Spartanburg, and his statement that he was not engaged to Miss Phillips. He read it over a second time. Then, as if by the recurrence of a lapsed instinct, unthinkingly he turned the leaves and was reading an item on the "society page." "Virginia Springs, Va.—Her physician states that Mrs. Hayne Phillips is recovering very slowly from the effects of the terrible shock caused by Mr. Phillips’ death, and will hardly be strong enough to be removed to her home in Cleveland before the first of October." Rutledge had been buried in South Carolina politics for ten weeks and in that time had not seen the Virginia Springs date-line sometime so familiar to him. Of course, he thought, Elise is with her mother! and from the dating-stamp on that letter he had carelessly assumed she was in Washington. He turned back a page and glanced hurriedly at a railroad time-card, then at his watch. "Here," he called sharply to the cabby, who jerked up his horse, "you’ve but three minutes to get me back to the station—get a move on!" ... Out of the cab through the waiting-room and at the gate he rushed. The placid keeper barred the way. "C. & O. west!" snapped Rutledge. "Gone." The gateman seemed to be thinking of something else. "How long since?" "Half minute. Lynchburg, yes, madam—third track." "When’s the next?" Rutledge demanded impatiently. "Three-eighteen. Don’t block the way." * * * * * Desiring to avoid interviews and interviewers, Rutledge drove to his sleeping quarters and shut himself in for the seven or eight hours wait. His fever of impatience had time to rise and fall many times before the hour and minute of 3:18 came slowly and grudgingly to pass. He had so desired to tell Elise that he had come without delay. It was very late in the afternoon when he reached the Virginia Springs hotel. He was somewhat undecided how to proceed: whether to ask Elise’s permission to call or to present himself unannounced, whether to inquire of the clerk in the crowded lobby the way to the Phillips’ cottage or to acquire the information more quietly. He noted that not less than half a dozen men within ear-shot of the clerk’s desk were at the moment reading various papers that had Elise’s name and his own in display type on their front pages.