* * * * *

At this same time,--how should she know it?--something very
different was going on in one of the rooms of a great hotel in New
York. Somebody else who had meant before now to have left for home,
had been delayed till after sundown. Somebody else would go over the
road by dark instead of by daylight. By dark,--though there should
be broad, beating sunshine over the world again when the journey
should be made.

While Mrs. Argenter's maid was bringing out the tray with delicate
black-etched china cups, and costly fruit plates illuminated
with color, and dainty biscuits, and large, rare, red berries,
and cream that would hardly pour for richness in a gleaming
crystal flagon,--and ranging them all on the rustic veranda
table,--something very different,--very grim,--at which the
occupants of rooms near by shuddered as it passed their open
doors,--was borne down the long, wide corridor to Number Five, in
the Metropolitan; and at the same moment, again, a gentleman, very
grave, was standing at the counter of the Merchants' Union Telegraph
Company's Office, writing with rapid hand, a brief dispatch,
addressed to "Mrs. I.M. Argenter, Dorbury, Mass.," and signed
"Philip Burkmayer, M.D."

Nobody knew of any one else to send to; at that hour, especially,
when the office in State Street would be closed. Closed, with that
name outside the door that stood for nobody now.

The news must go bare and unbroken to her.