orld
in beginning this desperate undertaking. The next moment she passed
the window and was gone.

Miss Muller, with a satchel and shawl-strap, would have started coolly
at an hour's notice alone for the Yosemite or Japan. But Kitty, with
the enormous trunk, which was her sole idea of travel, set out through
the night and storm, feeling death clutching at her on every side.

An hour after nightfall that evening the Eastern express-train reached
the station beyond Berrytown, bringing home Peter and his wife,
triumphant. Her money had covered a larger extent of muslins and laces
than she hoped for--enough to convert the raw school-girl Kitty, when
she was married, into a leader of church-going fashion.

Mrs. Guinness leaned back in the plush car-seat, planning the
wedding-breakfast. That was now her only care. Out in the world of
shops and milliners her superstitious dread of a man long since dead
had seemed to her absurd.

"I have had some unreasonable fears about Kitty," she said to Peter,
who was beginning to nod opposite to her. "But all will be well when
she is Muller's wife."

Another train passed at the moment they reached the station. Her eye
ran curiously over the long line of faces in the car-windows to find
some neighbor or friend.

She touched Peter's arm: "How like that is to Kitty!" nodding toward
a woman's head brought just opposite to them. The train began to move,
and the woman turned her face toward them: "Merciful Heaven, it _is_
Kitty!"

The engine sent out its shrill foreboding whistle and rushed on,
carrying the girl into the darkness. Behind her in the car as it
passed her mother saw the face of Hugh Guinness.

CHAPTER XIV.

Doctor McCall had been five minutes too late for the first train,
and so had been delayed for the express in which Kitty started on her
adventure. Commonplace accidents determine commonplace lives, was a
favorite maxim of the Berrytown Illuminati. The Supreme Intelligence
whom they complimented with respect could not be expected to hold such
petty trifles or petty lives in His controlling hand.

Doctor McCall had seen Catharine when she first entered the station.
Her very manner had the air of flight and secresy. Puzzled and
annoyed, he sat down in the rear of the car, himself unseen. When they
reached Philadelphia it was not yet dawn. The passengers rushed out
of the cars: Kitty sat quiet. She had never slept outside of the
Book-house before. She looked ou