‘Yes, there is something more—­her trunk,’ chimed in the baggage-master, who had just entered the room, trembling and breathless.

‘Her trunk!  Did she come in the cars?’ Frank asked, his hands dropping helplessly at his side, and his lips growing pale, as the man replied: 

’Yes; last night, on the quarter-past-six from New York; and what is curi’s, she got out on the side away from the depot, and I never seen her till the cars went on, when she was lookin’ at a paper, and the child cryin’ at her feet.  I spoke to her, but she did not answer, and snatching up the child, she hurried off, almost on a run.  It was storming so I did not see her trunk till this mornin’, when I found it on the platform.  I wish I had gone after her and made her take a sleigh.  If I had she wouldn’t now have been dead, and, I swow, I feel as if I had killed her.  I wonder why under the sun she turned into the lots, unless she was goin’ to Collingwood—­’

‘Or Tracy Park,’ Frank said, involuntarily.

‘Were you expecting any one?’ Mr. St. Claire asked.

Sinking into a chair, Frank replied: 

’No, I was not, but Arthur, who has been worse than usual for a few days, has again a fancy that Gretchen is coming.  He says now that she was not in the ship with him, but that he has written her to join him here, and yesterday he took it into his head that she would be here last night, and insisted that the carriage be sent to meet her; but John had hurt his back, and as I had no faith in her coming, he did not go.  I wish he had; it might have saved this woman’s life, although she is not Gretchen.’

Frank had made his confession, except so far as deceiving his brother was concerned, and he felt his mind eased a little, though there was still a lump in his throat, and a feeling of disquiet in his heart, with a wish that the dead woman had never crossed his path, and a conviction that he had not yet seen the worst of it.

Mr. St. Claire looked at him thoughtfully a moment, and then said: 

’I should not accuse myself too much.  You could not know that any one would be there, and this woman certainly is not the Gretchen of whom your brother talks so much, and whose picture is in his room.  Has he seen her?  Does he know of the accident?’

’I have not told him yet.  He is not feeling well to-day.  Charles says he is still in bed,’ was Frank’s reply.

‘We may find something in her trunk,’ Mr. St. Claire continued, ’which will give us a clue to her history.  Where do you suppose she kept her key?’