Everard Dawn, who had an aversion to letter-writing, corresponded but infrequently with his daughter, hence had left her in ignorance of the date of his return from California. Mrs. Varian, on the other hand, had not apprised her son of her suddenly decided upon journey to Florida. So he could only nurse his wonder and melancholy together while looking back in a painful retrospection over the tangled web of what had been and what might have been, those “saddest of all sad words.” There was a silent prayer in his heart, too, that Everard Dawn might survive till he reached his bedside, so that some last words might be said between them, some news be told, and perhaps some death-bed revelations be made to Cinthia. CHAPTER XXXVI. AN OBSTINATE WOMAN. Janetta, the indiscreet maid, would never forget the night when she blurted out the news of the railway wreck to her ailing mistress and sent her into that long, deathly swoon. Mrs. Varian was not in the habit of fainting, and it gave Janetta a terrible scare, especially when the usual simple remedies failed to revive the unconscious lady. Pale as a marble figure, her pallor heightened by the loosened tresses of raven hair and the inky lashes lying heavily against her cheek, she lay among the pillows, and though Janetta tried frantically first one thing and then another, no breath stirred the pulseless bosom of her mistress. She ran down-stairs for a doctor, but every medico in the neighborhood had been summoned to the relief of the victims of the wreck. She could get no assistance for an hour, except that of terrified women. Among them they succeeded in rousing her momentarily to a consciousness of the situation; but almost as soon as her dark eyes opened, she closed them again, murmuring mournfully: “Let me die.” And the remembrance of her trouble sent her immediately off into another spell almost as long as the first one. The frightened and sympathetic women helped Janetta with all their skill and knowledge, until in about half an hour they saw Mrs. Varian’s breast heave faintly and her eyelids flutter. “She’s coming to again, thank the Lord!” sobbed Janetta. “Now one of you women step in the next room and ask that doctor in there trying to bring a dead man to life to come in here and help us, and if he won’t come, to send me word how to stop her from going off again as soon as she opens her eyes and remembers.” The house-maid went, and the housekeeper said: “The man looked dead to me, but that doctor thought it might be temporary unconsciousness, and won’t leave off trying to save him till he’s sure. But, la! his leg was broke, and there’s a cut on the head--concussion of the brain, maybe, so the doctor said. It’s a pity for the poor man. He was a beauty of a fellow.” “Wonder who he was?” observed another, while Mrs. Varian’s breathing grew more pronounced, and her dark eyes opened eagerly, as the housekeeper replied: