" she said.
"He never forgets the boy."

She took the little parcel, and posted it to her son.

As the train sped on, Auntie, expanding herself in her corner, felt a
revival of health and spirits.

She had escaped, thanks be to God. But for her mercifully awakening
before the chloroform had taken effect, she would at the present moment
be lying a corpse on the visitors' bed of her niece's house, done to
death by her niece's husband. Once under the chloroform--she was
certain of it--she could not have revived.

She could not endure to think of the house in which she had been
attacked, and on which she had now mercifully been permitted to turn
her back. The sun had shone brightly within its spotless windows this
morning; fresh flowers had decked the breakfast-table; a neat servant
had brought in the coffee. Grace, at her end of the table, pretty and
rosy and young, had talked away, only pleasantly excited by the night's
adventure, in her quick, alert manner. And over it all was hanging this
cloud of ruin, horror, disgrace! Let Auntie banish the ever-recurring
picture, if possible, from her mind. Surely she had done well to get
away!

But as the train sped on, Grace's image, pretty, brisk, capable,
floated persistently before her eyes. She heard her quick speech, her
laugh. She was Auntie's own flesh and blood--Alfred's daughter. Some
people, who did not appreciate how keenly she felt discomfort, and how
dreadfully anything at all unpleasant upset her, might say she should
have stayed at Grace's side, and not left her alone to face what was
coming: they might say it to each other, that is. No one had the right
to censure Auntie.

"What good could I do? I should only have been in the way," she said;
"best to keep out of it all."

The train sped on. At every station the attentive guard walked by,
turned an observant eye, touched his cap. The old girl was good for
two-and-six at the journey's end, perhaps; also, perhaps, she would
thank him and give him nothing. A guard can never be sure. Still--!

How could Grace, who had been such a nice bright little girl, and who
used to go to Auntie for her holidays, years ago, and give very little
trouble, considering, have tied herself to that mouthing black and
white man, with his restless little shaking hands, endlessly fidgeting?
When she partook of a late supper Auntie sometimes had bad dreams, and
awoke with her heart beating into her mouth. She knew what her
nightmare