"G.o.d, I presume," observed the hara.s.sed conductor, turning away with the realisation that he had erred in coming to her in the first place.
The porter returned at that moment.
"n.o.body in that section, ma"am. It was sold, but the party didn"t show up."
"Good Heavens, you--but he DID show up. I--I know he did. Look again.
Try--but wait! Ask for Mr. Dauntless. Ask quietly, please."
"Yes, ma"am."
Her nerves at highest tension, Miss Thursdale made her way toward the rear platform of the train. She pa.s.sed down the curtained aisles of two coaches, wondering how people could sleep so soundly in a crisis like this. A porter politely opened a door and she slipped out upon the last platform. As far as the eye could reach stretched the roadbed and its telegraph poles, finally disappearing in the haze of the morning.
Wide-spread flood, soaking the flat--
A sharp cry of amazement came from the track just below her. She looked down and into the eyes of Anne Courtenay, the governess. For a full minute they stared blankly at each other, apparently bereft of all the agencies that fall to the lot of woman.
"Miss Courtenay!" finally came from the lips of the girl on the platform.
"Miss Thursdale!" murmured Anne, reaching out to support herself against the b.u.mper. Other words failed to come for the time being. In sheer despair, neither could accomplish more than a pallid smile. To the reader is left the privilege of a.n.a.lysing the thoughts which surged through the brains of the bewildered young women,--the fears, the doubts, the resentments.
"Where--where have you been?" at last fell from Miss Thursdale"s lips.
"Been?" repeated Miss Courtenay, vaguely. "Oh, yes; I"ve been taking a walk--a const.i.tutional. I always do."
Eleanor stared harder than ever. "All this distance?" she murmured.
"Down the track for half a mile, Miss Thursdale."
"Are--were you on this train?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Eleanor.
"Yes--but I--I---" stammered Anne, her face growing red with rising resentment. "I did not think this of you."
"What do you mean? It is--May I ask why you are here, Miss Courtenay?
It is most extraordinary."
"It is very easily explained," said Miss Courtenay, after a moment"s battle with veracity. "My aunt is very ill in Vancouver." To herself she was saying: "I must keep her from really seeing Harry. She knows what he has done--in heaven"s name, how could she have found it out?--and she is waiting to catch us if she can. She has followed us!
Thank goodness, I"ve seen her first."
Eleanor was not blessed with the possibility of such an explanation for Anne"s presence; she could only believe that the governess had been suddenly called to the bedside of her aunt--a real person, she happened to know, and very rich. But how was she to account for her own astonishing departure from home? Miss Courtenay had seen her at dinner; nothing had been said regarding "an unexpected journey." In truth, Eleanor remembered with inflexible accuracy that she had announced her intention to go to bed with a headache. Then, what must Miss Courtenay be thinking at this very instant?
An inspiration came to her like a flash. "I--I am running away, Miss Courtenay," she cried, with a brave attempt to appear naive.
"I don"t understand," murmured poor Anne.
"Of course you don"t," said Eleanor, inspiration heaping itself up within her. "Not really, you know, but just for a few days" rest.
Mother thinks I"m looking wretchedly. We didn"t say anything about it--except to Mr. Windomshire, of course. He knows. Perhaps he will run up to Omegon in a day or two to see me. It"s very quiet there, and I"ll get a good rest. The hotel is delightful--facing the lake. And the bathing"s good. Dear me, I"m so sorry about your aunt." Miss Courtenay"s eyes actually blinked with perplexity. This was a most staggering bit of news. Eleanor flushed painfully under the gaze of the other; utter rout followed. She stammered some flimsy excuse and dashed back into the car. To herself she was crying: "I must find Joe and tell him to keep out of sight. Oh, how awful this is!"
Just inside the door she met her porter.
"There"s n.o.body named Dauntless on the train, miss. A gentleman who said he was his friend thinks he missed the train perhaps."
"He--he--oh, I see!" said Eleanor, suddenly perceiving method in Joe"s reluctance to answer to his own name. "Thank you. That"s all." Then, to herself: "He has seen Miss Courtenay, and she HASN"T seen him,--that"s plain." She handed the porter a coin.
"I went to the berth you mentioned, ma"am, and I asked through the curtains: "Is Mr. Dauntless in here?" There was a lady in the upper, miss, an"--an"--well, I"ll never forget what she said to me." Eleanor had gone before he concluded, determined to unearth her cautious lover, if possible.
Anne caught the porter before he could follow.
"See here, porter," she whispered softly, "go to Car 5, section 6, and call its occupant. Tell him NOT to get up. Do you understand? NOT to get up!"
It goes without saying, of course, that all efforts, secret or otherwise, failed to locate the missing men. The distracted brides, each trying to run away from the other in a way, were in a state of collapse, necessarily subdued but most alarming. The Rev. Henry Derby, a nice-looking young fellow, who looked more like a tennis player than a minister of the gospel, eventually identified his old friend"s ladye faire, and introduced himself with a discreetness that proved him to have been in college at the proper period and in a somewhat different cla.s.s from that which he now sought to lead. In the privacy of her drawing-room the bewitching but distressed young woman discussed the situation with the man who had been chosen to perform the clandestine ceremony in the far-away town of Omegon. Derby, coming on from his eastern home in loyal acquiescence to his friend"s request, had designedly taken this train, it being understood that Dauntless would board it at Fenlock with his fair conspirator. We all know why Dauntless failed to perform his part of the agreement; Derby, with the perspicuity of a college man, finally advanced a reason for his inexplicable failure to appear. Eleanor had begun tearfully to accuse him of abandoning her at the last moment; Mr. Derby indignantly scouted the idea. When she related their chase in the motor and their escape from Windomshire, he formed his conclusions, and they were in the main remarkably correct.
"I"m afraid, Miss Thursdale, that your disappointed lover, our ancient enemy, the Englishman, was not to be overcome so neatly. Has it occurred to you that he may have reached Fenlock before the train left, and that he is the explanation for Joe"s non-appearance?"
"You--you don"t mean that he has killed---" she was gasping, growing whiter and whiter. He hastened to rea.s.sure her.
"Oh, no; not so bad as that. But it is possible and quite probable that he--if, as you say, he was on to your--I should say, aware of your flight, it is probable that he succeeded in detaining Joe in Fenlock.
That would---" "Impossible! Joe wouldn"t let him!" she cried indignantly.
"Perhaps Joe couldn"t help himself. Such things happen. At any rate, you"ll understand, the despised enemy could have---"
"Mr. Windomshire is not a despised enemy. He"s a VERY nice man, Mr.
Derby," she interrupted.
"Certainly, Miss Thursdale. What I meant to say was, that he was morally sure of preventing the wedding if he could only keep you far enough apart. Now that is probably what he has done. You can"t marry Joe in Omegon or anywhere else unless he is there and not in Fenlock."
"I see. Well, I"ll go back to Fenlock!" she exclaimed emphatically, a little line of determination and stubbornness settling about the erstwhile trembling lips.
"I admire your loyalty," he said warmly. "Just at present, however, we are water-bound here, and we"ve got to make the best of it. I fancy Joe will telegraph before long."
"If--if he hasn"t been hurt. Oh, Mr. Derby, they may have fought. It would be just like them. It may be dreadfully serious. You don"t know as much about men as I do. They"re terribly---"
"Please don"t worry, Miss Thursdale," he said, smiling in recollection of his football days. "You"ll find there"s been nothing b.l.o.o.d.y about all this. The delay is vexatious, but only temporary, I"m sure."
"I"ll marry Joe Dauntless now if it has to be delayed a hundred years,"
she cried, her eyes flashing.
During the next half-hour poor Derby ran errands, carried messages and complaints to every one of the train men, finally administering smelling salts when it occurred to Eleanor that Joe might have fallen off the train during the night.
In the meantime Anne Courtenay was having a sad half-hour of it. She had no one to turn to, no one to think it all out for her; she was alone and in great despair. The porter had failed to find the tall Englishman; the conductor had been equally unsuccessful; she herself had searched in vain. His trunks and hers were in the baggage car, she found, but there was no sign of the man himself. She was a self-reliant, sensible young woman, accustomed to the rigours of the world, but this was quite too overwhelming. The presence on the train of the girl that she had, to all intents and purposes, cruelly deceived, did not add to her comfort. As a matter of fact, she was quite fond of Eleanor; they were warm friends despite the vagaries of love. Miss Courtenay, among other things, began to wonder, as she sat in her tumbled berth, if retribution had more to do with this than chance.
"Could he have fallen off the train?" she wondered, with a sudden chill of apprehension. The next instant she was calling to the porter. "Send the conductor to me at once. My friend has fallen off the train--out of his window, perhaps. I am quite sure of it. I want an engine to go back and look for him. Hurry, please! don"t stand there grinning."
The Pullman conductor came up at that moment.
"Are you the young lady who was asking for Mr. Dauntless?" he asked.
"Dauntless?" she murmured. "No, I"m asking for an engine. Have you--"
"There"s another young lady asking for an engine, too, madam. It"s impossible."
"Am I to understand that I shall have to walk?--Oh," with a sudden start, "is--is there a Mr. Dauntless missing too?"