“Why don’t you go to Thorbury and telegraph?” asked Cicely, who was now almost as pale as Ralph.  “Then you could find out exactly what has happened.”

“Oh, I must go, I must go,” said Ralph; “but I shall telegraph.  I shall go to Thorbury instantly, and get on as soon as I can.”

Mike stood looking on the ground.

“Mr. Hav’ley,” he said, as the young man was about to hurry to the house, “tain’t no use, the telegraph office is shet up, right after that down train passes.”

“It is barbarous!” exclaimed Ralph.  “I will go anyway.  I will find the operator.”

“Mr. Hav’ley,” said Mike, “don’t you go an’ do that.  You is tremblin’ like a asp.  You’ll be struck down sick if you go on so.  There’s a train a quarter of six in the mornin’, an’ I’ll git you over to that.  If you goes to Thorbury, you won’t be fit to travel in the mornin’, an’ you won’t be no good when you gits there.”

Tears were now on Cicely’s cheeks, in spite of her efforts to restrain herself.

“He is right, Mr. Ralph,” she said.  “I think it will be dreadful for you to be in Thorbury all night, and most likely for no good.  It will be a great deal better to leave here early in the morning and go straight to Barport.  But let us go into the house and talk to mother.  After all, it may not be Miriam.  You cannot tell what it is.  It is a cruel message.”

Mrs. Drane was greatly shocked, but she agreed with her daughter that it would not be wise for Ralph to go to Thorbury until he could start for Barport.  La Fleur was somewhat frightened when she found that her wilful delay of the telegram might occasion Mr. Haverley an harassing and anxious night in Thorbury, and was urgent in her endeavors to quiet him and persuade him to remain at home until morning.  But it was not until Cicely had put in her last plea that the young man consented to give up his intention of going in search of the telegraph operator.

“Mr. Ralph,” said she, “don’t you think it would be awful if you were to send a message and get a bad answer to it, and have to stay there by yourself until the morning?  I cannot bear to think of it; and telegraphic messages are always so hard and cruel.  If I were you, I would rather go straight on and find out everything for myself.”

Ralph looked down at her and at the tears upon her cheeks.

“I will do that,” he said, and taking her hand, he pressed it thankfully.

Every preparation and arrangement was made for an early start, and Ralph wandered in and out of the house, impatient as a wild beast to break away and be gone.  Cicely, whose soul was full of his sorrow, went out to him on the piazza, where he stood, looking at the late moon rising above the treetops.

“What a different man I should be,” he said, “if I could think that Miriam was standing on the seashore and looking at that moon.”