The old gentleman awoke with a start and the mother, looking over her glasses, bade her good-night and sweet dreams, according to a long-established formula. "Don't know what's the matter with Sophy, she's that restless an' nervous," said her mother. "She always was, fur's I know," answered McGurn. "If she's gettin' the complaint worse she must be sickenin' for something." The subject of these remarks, once in her room, was in no hurry to woo the slumber she had expressed a desire for. In her mind anxiety was battling with anger and disappointment. Whether or not she really loved Ennis, or had turned to him merely because his general ways and appearance showed him to be a man of some breeding, with education superior to the usual standard of Carcajou, such as she would have been glad to marry, at any rate her brow narrowed, her lips closed into a thin straight line and her hands were clenched tight. What she had done would probably utterly prevent any renewal of the friendship she had tried to establish, since Hugo would perhaps be run out of the place. Moreover, that girl was really very pretty, in spite of what she had said downstairs, and this stranger was now over there. Sophy had expected to see her return with Stefan, perhaps also with Hugo, and the girl's face would have shown marks of tears, and Hugo would have been in a towering rage, and gradually the people of Carcajou would have been made aware, somehow, of what had happened, and the settler of Roaring Falls would be the butt of laughter, if not of scurrilous remarks. But now the dark night had come and Carcajou was very still under the starlight. The old cat scratching at her door startled her. The profound silence that followed appeared to irk her badly. After a long time there was the shriek of the night-freight's whistle and the great rumbling of the arriving train, the grinding of brakes, shouts that sounded harshly, various loud thumps as cars were shunted off to the siding. And then the train started again, groaning and clattering and heaving up the grade through the cut, after which the intense stillness returned and she lay awake, her eyes peering through darkness, her senses all alert and her nerves a-quiver, until nearly the coming of dawn. But the men who had gone out, before scattering to their homes, had reached a unanimous conclusion. It was true that excitement was rare in Carcajou, but this was a matter of upholding the fair reputation of the mill and four or five dozen shacks and frame houses that constituted the village. It was decided that a committee must go over to the Falls and investigate.