A train thundered in. The station platform was quite deserted except for the few belated revelers who had remained in town for the night performance of Van Slye's circus. When the train pulled out, a woman and two men stood beside the hack, where tearful farewells had been uttered and Godspeed spoken. Toward the east sped a tall woman and a slim, beautiful girl. In the outskirts of the town the train swept past a string of huge, cumbersome, ghostly wagons, all of them slinking away into the night-ridden pike that led to another city where the young and curious were already dreaming of the morning hours that were to bring the "circus to town." "Good-by--good-by!" sobbed the girl, who had been peering intently through the window of the car. The tall woman did not look forth, but sat with her eyes riveted on the seat ahead. "Yes, it is good-by, my darling," she said in very low tones. Back at the railway station, after the rear lights of the train had disappeared, the lone woman turned her tear-stained face to the man whose arm was about her shoulder. "Do you think we'll ever see them again, daddy?" she moaned. "Yes," said the man huskily. "She said she'd let me know, one way or another, when it is safe to do so. Don't cry, Ruby. They're better off. They couldn't 'ave stayed on, God knows. And God will take care of 'em." "I wish she'd said just where she's really bound for," muttered the other man, a tall ungainly fellow. "She's mighty near dead-broke, and I'm--I'm uneasy, Joey." "She'll get on, Casey, confound you!" "If she'd only make up her mind to go back to her father," said the girl. "That's just it. If she's going back to 'im, it's best nobody knows yet--not even us. I've got their two letters for David, if he ever comes looking them up, as he said he would. Well, God bless 'em. I--I 'ates to think wot the show will be without 'em. Come on; let's get back to bed." And so it was, many days afterward, that David Jenison came "looking them up," only to find that they were gone and that no one could tell him whither they had fled. It was significant that Colonel Bob Grand was not with the show; he had gone away in a great rage when the discovery of the flight became known to him. Tom Braddock, strangely sobered and bleached out by a tardy remorse, went about mechanically in the management of the show which he no longer owned. Joey Grinaldi delivered two precious, carefully preserved missives into the hands of the distracted Virginian. One of these letters said that the writer would wait for him to the end of time, loving him always with all her heart. The other, much longer, came to its conclusion with these words, written by a wise, far-seeing woman whose heart was breaking: