aced their way, which now seemed familiar
and short. There was, at any rate, a light on a tall pole in front of
the little station, although the station itself was deserted; they
seated themselves on the bench under it to wait. The train was not
scheduled for nearly an hour yet.

"Oh, if I could only fly back!" Lois groaned. "I don't see how I can
wait--I don't see how I can wait! Oh, why did I come?"

"Perhaps there is a train before the one you spoke of," said Dosia, with
the terribly self-accusing feeling now that she ought to have prevented
the expedition at the beginning. She got up to go into the little box of
a house, in search of a time-table. As she passed the tall post that
held the light, she saw tacked on it a paper; and read aloud the words
written on it below the date:

NOTICE

NO TRAINS WILL RUN ON THIS ROAD TO-NIGHT AFTER 8.30 P.M. ON
ACCOUNT OF REPAIRS

Dosia and Lois looked at each other with the blankness of despair--the
frantic, forlornly heroic impulse, uncalculating of circumstances, now
showed itself against them in all its piteous woman-folly.

XXVII

Only fifty miles from a great city, the little station seemed like the
typical lodge in a wilderness; as far as one could see up or down the
track, on either side were wooded hills. A vast silence seemed to be
gathering from unseen fastnesses, to halt in this spot.

There were no houses and no lights to be seen anywhere, except that one
swinging on the pole above, and the moon which was just rising. It was,
in fact, one of those places which consist of the far, back-lying acres
of the great country-owners, and which seem to the casual traveler
forgotten or unknown in their extent and apparently primitive condition.

To the women sitting on the bench, wrapped around by the loneliness and
the intense stillness of the oncoming night, the whole expedition
appeared at last, unveiled in all its grim betrayal.

For the first time since Lois had left home, a wild, seething anxiety
for Justin possessed her. How could she have left him? She must get back
to him at once!

"Oh, Dosia, we must get home again; we must get home!" she cried,
starting up so vehemently that the baby in her arms screamed, and Lois
walked up and down distractedly hushing him, and then, as he still
wailed, sat down once more and bared her white bosom to quiet him. "We
shall have to get back; Dosia, we must start at once."

"We shall have to walk to Haledon,"