The train stopped at several places to take on water; but there seemed to be no human habitation near, or else his eyes were dim with his trouble.  Once, when they stopped longer than the other times, he got up and walked the length of the car and down the steps to the ground.  He even stood there, and let the train start jerkily on till his car had passed him, and the steps were just sliding by, and tried to think whether he would not stay, and go back in some way to find her.  Then the impossibility of the search, and of his getting back in time to do any good, helped him to spring on board just before it was too late.  He walked back to his seat saying to himself, “Fool!  Fool!”

It was not till morning that he remembered his baggage and went in search of it.  There he found a letter from his cousin, with other letters and telegrams explaining the state of affairs at home.  He came back to his seat laden with a large leather grip and a suitcase.  He sat down to read his letters, and these took his mind away from his troubled thoughts for a little while.  There was a letter from his mother, sweet, graceful, half wistfully offering her sympathy.  He saw she guessed the reason why he had left her and gone to this far place.  Dear little mother!  What would she say if she knew his trouble now?  And then would return his heart-frenzy over Elizabeth’s peril.  O to know that she was protected, hidden!

Fumbling in his pocket, he came upon a slip of paper, the slip the girl had given Elizabeth in the schoolhouse on Sunday afternoon.  “For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me.”

Ah!  God had hidden her then.  Why not again?  And what was that he had said to her himself, when searching for a word to cover his emotion?  “I pray for you!” Why could he not pray?  She had made him pray in the wilderness.  Should he not pray for her who was in peril now?  He leaned back in the hot, uncomfortable car-seat, pulling his hat down closer over his eyes, and prayed as he had never prayed before.  “Our Father” he stumbled through as far as he could remember, and tried to think how her sweet voice had filled in the places where he had not known it the other time.  Then, when he was done, he waited and prayed, “Our Father, care for Elizabeth,” and added, “For Jesus’ sake.  Amen.”  Thereafter through the rest of his journey, and for days and weeks stretching ahead, he prayed that prayer, and sometimes found in it his only solace from the terrible fear that possessed him lest some harm had come to the girl, whom it seemed to him now he had deserted in cold blood.

CHAPTER IX

IN A TRAP

Elizabeth rode straight out to the east, crossing the town as rapidly as possible, going full gallop where the streets were empty.  On the edge of the town she crossed another trail running back the way that they had come; but without swerving she turned out toward the world, and soon passed into a thick growth of trees, around a hill.