ys loved your little Kate and you couldn't
really want me to be unhappy. Please send my trunks to Washington.
I've tacked the card with the address on the ends.

"Your loving little girl,

"KATE."

There was a terrible stillness in the room, broken only by the crackling
of paper as the notes were turned in the hands of their readers. Marcia
felt as if centuries were passing. David's soul was pierced by one awful
thought. He had no room for others. She was gone! Life was a blank for
him! stretching out into interminable years. Of her treachery and
false-heartedness in doing what she had done in the way she had done it,
he had no time to take account. That would come later. Now he was trying
to understand this one awful fact.

Madam Schuyler handed the second note to her husband, and with set lips
quickly skimmed through the other one. As she read, indignation rose
within her, and a great desire to outwit everybody. If it had been
possible to bring the erring girl back and make her face her disgraced
wedding alone, Madam Schuyler would have been glad to do it. She knew that
upon her would likely rest all the re-arrangements, and her ready brain
was already taking account of her servants and the number of messages that
would have to be sent out to stop the guests from arriving. She waited
impatiently for her husband to finish reading that she might consult with
him as to the best message to send, but she was scarcely prepared for the
burst of anger that came with the finish of the letters. The old man
crushed his daughter's note in his hand and flung it from him. He had
great respect and love for David, and the sight of him broken in grief,
the deed of his daughter, roused in him a mighty indignation. His voice
shook, but there was a deep note of command in it that made Madam Schuyler
step aside and wait. The Squire had arisen to the situation, and she
recognized her lord and master.

"She must be brought back at once at all costs!" he exclaimed. "That
rascal shall not outwit us. Fool that I was to trust him in the house!
Tell the men to saddle the horses. They cannot have gone far yet, and
there are not so many roads to Washington. We may yet overtake them, and
married or unmarried the hussy shall be here for her wedding!"

But David raised his head from the mantel-shelf and steadied his voice:

"No, no,