It was to Rotha as if she had suddenly seen a guard of angels about her. Nay, better than that. She was a young disciple yet, she had not learned all the ins and outs of faith; but this night her journey was sweet to her. The train rumbled along through the darkness; but "darkness and the light are alike to him," she remembered. Now and then the cars stopped at a village or wayside station; and a few lights shone upon boards and platforms and bits of wall; sometimes shone from within a saloon where refreshments were set out; there were switches to be turned on or off; there was a turn-out place where the train waited three quarters of an hour for the down train. All the same! Rotha remembered that switches and turnouts made no manner of difference, no more than the darkness, if the Lord was keeping her. It was somehow a sweet kind of a night that she had; not alone nor unhappy; faith, for the moment at least, laying its grasp on the whole wide realm of promise and resting satisfied and quiet in its possessions. After a while she slept and dozed, waking up occasionally to feel the rush and hear the rumble of the cars, to remember in whose hand she was, and then quietly to doze off again. CHAPTER XXIII. TANFIELD. The last time she awoke, the rush and the roar had ceased; the train was standing still in the darkness. Not utterly in the dark, for one or two miserable lamps were giving a feeble illumination; and there was a stir and a hum of voices. Another station, evidently. "What is it?" she asked somebody passing her. "Tanfield." Tanfield! and this darkness still. "What o'clock is it, please?" she asked the conductor, who just then appeared. "Three o'clock in the morning. You stop here, don't you?" "Yes; but how can I get to the hotel?" "It's just by; not a dozen steps off. Here, give me your bag--I'll see you there. We don't go on; change cars, for whoever wants to go further. You don't go further?" "No." "Then come on." Half awake, and dazed, Rotha gratefully followed her companion; who piloted the way for her out of the train and through the station house and across a street, or road rather, for it was not paved. A hotel of some pretension faced them on the other side of the street. The kind conductor marched in like one at home, sent for the sleepy chambermaid, and consigned Rotha to her care. "You would like a room and a bed, ma'am?" "A room, yes, and water to wash the dust off; but I do not want a bed. How early can you give me breakfast?" "Breakfast? there's always breakfast full early, ma'am, for the train that goes out at half past six. You'll get breakfast then. Going by the half past six train, ma'am?" "No. I shall want some sort of a carriage by and by, to drive me out to Mrs. Busby's place; do you know where that is? And can I get a carriage here?"