Richard seemed very determined and unrelenting, and, knowing how useless it was to reason with him when in so stern a mood, his brothers gave up the contest, Andy thinking within himself how many, many times a day he should pray for Ethie that she might come back again.  Richard would not return to Camden that day, he said.  He could not face his acquaintance there until the first shock was over and they were a little accustomed to thinking of the calamity which had fallen upon him.  So he remained with his mother, sitting near the window which looked out upon the railroad track over which Ethie had gone.  What his thoughts were none could fathom, save as they were expressed by the dark, troubled expression of his face, which showed how much he suffered.  Perhaps he blamed himself as he went over again the incidents of that fatal night when he kept Ethelyn from the masquerade; but if he did, no one was the wiser for it, and so the first long day wore on, and the night fell again upon the inmates of the farmhouse.  The darkness was terrible to Richard, for it shut out from his view that strip of road which seemed to him a part of Ethie.  She had been there last, and possibly looked up at the old home—­her first home after her marriage; possibly, too, she had thought of him.  She surely did, if, as Andy believed, she was alone in her flight.  If not alone, he wanted no thoughts of hers, and Richard’s hands were clenched as he moved from the darkening window, and took his seat behind the stove, where he sat the entire evening, like some statue of despair, brooding over his ruined hopes.

The next day brought the Joneses—­Melinda and Tim—­the latter of whom had heard from Mrs. Amsden’s son of Andy’s strange errand there.  There was something in the wind, and Melinda came to learn what it was.  Always communicative to the Jones family, Mrs. Markham told the story without reserve, not even omitting the Van Buren part, but asking as a precaution that Melinda would not spread a story which would bring disgrace on them.  Melinda was shocked, astonished, and confounded, but she did not believe in Frank Van Buren.  Ethie never went with him—­never.  She, like Andy, would swear to that, and she said as much to Richard, taking Ethie’s side as strongly as she could, without casting too much blame on him.  And Richard felt better, hearing Ethie upheld and spoken for, even if it were so much against himself.  Melinda was still his good angel, while Ethie, too, had just cause for thanking the kind girl who stood by her so bravely, and even made the mother-in-law less harsh in her expression.

There was a letter for Richard that night, from Harry Clifford, who wrote as follows: 

“I do not know whether you found your wife at Mrs. Amsden’s or not, but I take the liberty of telling you that Frank Van Buren has returned, and solemnly affirms that if Mrs. Markham was on board the train which left here on the 17th, he did not know it.  Neither did he see her at all when in Camden.  He called on his way to the depot that night, and was told she was out.  Excuse my writing you this.  If your wife has not come back, it will remove a painful doubt, and if she has, please burn and forget it.  Yours,