But she imagined everything.  That was only one of many casualties.  The train was a little late.  She stood staring down the track at the unswerving signal-lights, watching for the head-light of the locomotive, and it seemed to her quite certain that there had been an accident on that train.  A thought struck her, and she went into the waiting-room and asked the ticket-agent if the train was very late.  The agent was quite a young man, and he looked at her with a covert masculine coquettishness as he replied, but she was oblivious of that.  All she thought of was that, if there had been an accident on the line and the train was late on that account, he would surely be apt to know.  Her heart was beating so fast that she trembled; but he said ten minutes, and said nothing about an accident, and she was reassured.  She turned to go, after thanking him, and he volunteered further information.

“There is a freight ahead delaying the train,” he said.

“Oh, thank you,” replied Charlotte.  Then she went out on the platform again and watched for the head-light of the locomotive, staring down the track past the twinkle of the signal-lights.  Suddenly it flashed into sight far off, but she saw it.  She waited.  Soon she heard the train.  A gateman crossed the tracks from the in-station, padlocking the gates carefully after him.  A baggage-master drew a trunk to the edge of the platform.  A few passengers came out of the waiting-room.

Charlotte waited, and the train came majestically around the curve below the station.  She moved along as it came up, keeping her eyes on the cars.  She seemed to have eyes with facets like a cut diamond.  It was really as if she saw all the car doors at once.  But she moved with a strange stiffness, and could not feel her hands nor feet; her heart beat so fast and thick that it shook her like the pulse of an engine.  She moved along, and she saw every passenger who alighted.  Then the train steamed out of the station with slowly gathering speed, and her father had not come on it.

Charlotte, when she actually realized the fact, the possibility of which had seemed incredible, gained a little strength.  It was like the endurance of disaster which is sometimes more feasible than the contemplation of it.  She thought at once what to do.  In the event of her father having been delayed by some unforeseen business he would surely telegraph.  She at once crossed the slope from the station and went to Andrew Drake’s drug-store, where the telegraph-office was.  She asked if a telegram had come for her, if one had been sent to the house.  When the boy in charge answered no, she felt as if she had received a stunning blow.  She had then no doubt whatever that something had happened to her father, some accident.  The boy, who was young and pleasant-faced, watched her with a vague sympathy.  In a moment she recovered herself.  He might have sent a telegram which had not arrived.  It might come any moment.  The boy directly had the same thought.  “The minute the telegram comes I’ll get it up to you,” he said, earnestly.  “I expect Mr. Drake back every minute, and I can leave.”