When that time had expired, and no answer came to her, she repeated the message, this time sending the despatch to Henry Slater's home address. Late into the night she sat up in her room, frantically waiting for some word from him. As the hours dragged on she paced the little chamber in a fever of unrest, pausing and listening at every footstep that passed her door. Midnight came and went, and still no word arrived. Then she knew that there was but one thing for her to do. In the gray of the morning, when Hartley and all the hotel were still sleeping, she called a carriage, and, hurrying to the railway station, caught the early morning express for Montreal, on her way to New York. It was no time for half measures. Three hours later, when Hartley went down to breakfast, after a night of mysteriously depressing restlessness, he found awaiting him an incoherent little note from Cordelia. Bewildered, only after many readings he gathered from it that she had been called away because of some business tangle about which she would tell him later. "If that isn't like her, the crazy child!" was Mrs. Spaulding's cry when she heard of it all, less disturbed in spirit than Hartley had expected. And while, indeed, he was still pondering over his surprising note from her, Cordelia herself was speeding along past the old French settlements on the banks of the upper St. Lawrence, gazing absently out at the low-eaved little cottages, and desperately asking herself, again and again, if it would be too late. CHAPTER XXVIII THE ALTAR OF EMINENCE Hate wrong, as a bull hates red; Fight strong, till the wrong lies dead, For to him, just God, the fight Who smites for the sake of the right! JOHN HARTLEY, "Juvenilia." A woman's heart never breaks, but O how often it withers!--CORDELIA VAUGHAN, "Motherhood." Cordelia's train crept into Montreal one hour and twenty minutes late, and it was already after three before she stepped out of the overheated car into the cool, crisp air of the station platform. She saw a uniformed attendant, and hurried to him at once. "Can I catch the New York express?" she asked, breathlessly. "Yes, ma'm!" he answered, promptly. Her heart gave a sudden great bound of joy; she was not yet too late; she felt that it was a good omen, that luck was with her. "What time does it leave?" she asked, hurriedly. "From the other station, ma'm, some time this evenin'." Her heart went down like lead. That meant hours more of suspense, hours more of waiting, and when time was so much to her!