I could not, I wrote to her, make the voyage without her.  It would be the shipwreck of all my new hopes.  It was cruel in her to have raised such hopes unless she was willing to fulfill them:  it made the separation all the harder.  I could not and would not give up the plan.  “I have engaged our passage in the Wednesday’s steamer:  say yes, dear child, and I will write to Dr. Wilder from here.”

I could not leave for Lenox before Saturday morning, and I hoped to be married on the evening of that day.  But to all my pleading came “No,” simply written across a sheet of note-paper in my darling’s graceful hand.

Well, I would go up on the Saturday, nevertheless.  She would surely yield when she saw me faithful to my word.

“I shall be a sorry-looking bride-groom,” I thought as I surveyed myself in the little mirror at the office.  It was Friday night, and we were shutting up.  We had worked late by gaslight, all the clerks had gone home long ago, and only the porter remained, half asleep on a chair in the hall.

It was striking nine as I gathered up my bundle of papers and thrust them into a bag.  I was rid of them for three days at least.  “Bill, you may lock up now,” I said, tapping the sleepy porter on the shoulder.

“Oh, Mr. Munro, shure here’s a card for yees,” handing me a lady’s card.

“Who left it, Bill?” I hurriedly asked, taking it to the flaring gaslight on the stairway.

“Two ladies in a carriage—­an old ’un and a pretty young lady, shure.  They charged me giv’ it yees, and druv’ off.”

“And why didn’t you bring it in, you blockhead?” I shouted, for it was Bessie Stewart’s card.  On it was written in pencil:  “Westminster Hotel.  On our way through New York.  Leave on the 8 train for the South to-night.  Come up to dinner.”

The eight-o’clock train, and it was now striking nine!

“Shure, Mr. Charles, you had said you was not to be disturbed on no account, and that I was to bring in no messages.”

“Did you tell those ladies that?  What time were they here?”

“About five o’clock—­just after you had shut the dure, and the clerks was gone.  Indeed, and they didn’t wait for no reply, but hearin’ you were in there, they druv’ off the minute they give me the card.  The pretty young lady didn’t like the looks of our office, I reckon.”

It was of no use to storm at Bill.  He had simply obeyed orders like a faithful machine.  So, after a hot five minutes, I rushed up to the Westminster.  Perhaps they had not gone.  Bessie would know there was a mistake, and would wait for me.

But they were gone.  On the books of the hotel were registered in a clear hand, Bessie’s hand, “Mrs. M. Antoinette Sloman and maid; Miss Bessie Stewart.”  They had arrived that afternoon, must have driven directly from the train to the office, and had dined, after waiting a little time for some one who did not come.