But when Leola Mead and her father were driven down to the station that night, to take the midnight train for New York, no hint of the truth reached them, and Leola’s heartache over her lover’s falsity was destined to last long, for from that hour, when she had fallen like one dead in the arbor, no news of him transpired for many months. Too proud to confess her heart wound to her father, she never called that once loved name in his hearing; she only sought refuge from her pain in change of scene, saying to him eagerly: “Papa, darling, I have been buried in the country so long that I am wild to see the world. If you are able to gratify my desires, I prefer travel to anything else on earth.” “I live only to gratify your wishes now, my precious daughter,” answered Alston Mead, eager to atone for having neglected her so long in his passionate grief over the loss of his lovely young wife. He had planned to come back and settle down in a quiet home with his lovely daughter, but he found it no hardship to gratify her desire for travel, since wandering had become a second nature with him. So in their leisurely wanderings through the United States, and afterward abroad, the past became almost like a dream to Leola, who told herself, bitterly, that doubtless Jessie Stirling and Olyphant were married long ago, and that she did not care, for she hated him now as much as she had once loved him. Alston Mead, in all ignorance of the tragic love story of his fair daughter, wondered a little that she remained so indifferent to the suitors she attracted wherever she went, for to him it seemed very natural for a young girl to fall in love; still he rejoiced that she did not appear to be susceptible, saying to himself that he could keep her all the longer to himself. But all the time Leola was thinking with bitter pique and pain of Jessie and Chester reconciled and happy, perhaps long ago wedded, his love affair of that golden summer an almost forgotten episode. It was bitter, for Leola knew in her heart that she had given the best and truest love of her life, and that she could never know again the bliss of those fleeting days, when she had loved and trusted as she never could again, because her tenderness had been betrayed, her heart trampled on like a withered flower thrown into the dust. “Like the wild hyacinth flower, which on the hills is found, Which the passing feet of the triflers forever tear and wound, Until the purple blossom is trodden in the ground.” So strangely and completely had Leola’s life changed that sometimes she felt as if she had died and come to life again in some new world--a kaleidoscopic world of change, in which every face and scene was new--if only, she said to herself, bitterly, she had not brought with her into this new life the cruel memories of the past, that seemed always crying aloud to her heart: