He had given his name on the boat as Roger Johnston, which was true so far as it went, and he signed this same name at the hotel where he put up till morning.  The place was an entirely unknown one to him and he was unknown to it.  Both fortuitous facts, he thought, in the light of his own perplexity as to the position in which he really stood towards this mysterious wife of his.

The coach, as I have said, ran late in the afternoon.  This was to accommodate the passengers who came by rail.  But Mr. Ransom had not planned to go by coach.  That would be to risk a premature encounter with his wife, or at least with the lawyer.  He preferred to hire a team, and be driven there by some indifferent livery-stable man.  Neither prospect was pleasing.  It had been raining all night, and bade fair to rain all day.  The river was clouded with mist; the hills, which are the glory of the place, were obliterated from the landscape, and the road—­he had never seen such a road, all little pools and mud.

However, there was no help for it.  The journey must be made, and seeing a livery-stable sign across the road, lost no time in securing the conveyance he needed.  At nine o’clock he started out.

The rain drove so fiercely from the northwest,—­the very direction in which they were traveling,—­that enjoyment of the scenery was impossible.  Nor could any pleasure be got out of conversation with the man who drove him.  Rain, rain, that was all; and the splash of mud over the wheels which turned all too slowly for his comfort.  And there were to be ten miles of this.  Naturally he turned to his thoughts and they were all of her.

Why had he not known her better before linking his fate to hers?  Why had he never encouraged her to talk to him more about herself and her early life?  Had he but done so, he might now have some clew to the mystery devouring him.  He might know why so rich and independent a woman had chosen this remote town on an inaccessible road, for the completion of an act which was in itself a mystery.  Why could not the will have been signed in New York?  But he was not inquisitive in those days.  He had taken her for what she seemed—­an untrammeled, gay-hearted girl, ready to love and be his happy wife and lifelong companion; and he had been contented to keep all conversation along natural lines and do no probing.  And now,—­this brother whom all had thought dead, come to life with menace in his acts and conversation!  Also a sister,—­but this sister he had no belief in.  The coincidence was too startlingly out of nature for him to accept a brother and a sister too.  A brother or a sister; but not both.  Not even Mr. Harper’s assurances should influence his credulity to this extent.  “Money! money is at the bottom of it all,” was his final decision.  “She knows it and is making her will, as a possible protection.  But why come here?”

Thus every reflection ended.