Charlotte gasped.

“I thought it might be a relief to your mind to know,” said the boy.  “I thought you might be watchin’.  I saw your father didn’t come on that other train.  I was up at the station on an errand.”

“Thank you,” said Charlotte, feebly.

The boy lingered a second with bashful eyes on her face, then he said again that he thought he would just stop in and let her know.  He was going down the path, and she was just closing the door, when he called back that she might have a telegram if her father sent it by the postal-telegraph system.

“You won’t get none from our place after now,” he said, “for Mr. Drake won’t bring up none so late; but if your father sends that way, you could get one, mebbe.”

“Thank you,” replied Charlotte, and the boy went away.

When Charlotte re-entered the house and locked the door, a loneliness which was like a positive chill struck over her.  It was much worse now since she had been in communication with another human being.

“If he had only been a girl I would have gone down on my knees to him to stay all night with me,” she thought.

She tried to think if there was anybody in Banbridge whom she could ask to stay with her, but she could think of none.  She thought of Marie, but she did not even know where she was.  There was no woman whom she could call upon.  She resumed her seat beside the window.  She did not dream of going to bed.  She had now to watch for the possible postal telegram; it would not be time for the last train for hours yet.  She had the telegraph-messenger and some possible marauder to watch for.  She kept her eyes glued to the expanse of the lawn and small stretch of road visible between the leafless trees.  Now and then a carriage passed; very seldom a walking shadow.  She always started at the sight of these, thinking the telegram might be about to arrive.  If the telegram should arrive she expected fully that it would be of some terrible import.  A thought struck her, something that she might do.  If her father was injured, if she were to be sent for from the City, she resolved that she would have everything in readiness for instant departure.  There was a train which Banbridge flagged after the arrival of the last train from New York.  She lit a lamp, went up-stairs, and packed a little travelling-bag with necessaries, and made some changes in her dress, and felt a certain relief in so doing.  She had very little money, and a book with two or three railroad tickets.  She felt that she could start at a moment’s notice should the telegram arrive.  All the time she was packing she was listening for the door-bell.  It became quite firmly fixed in her mind what the telegram would be:  that her father was terribly injured and had been carried to a hospital, that she should at once go to the hospital.  It sometimes occurred to her that he might be even dead, but that idea did not so take hold on her fancy as the other.