Philip was devoured with anxiety.  Where could they, have gone?  What was Laura’s object in taking Harry?  Had the flight anything to do with Selby?  Would Harry be such a fool as to be dragged into some public scandal?

It seemed as if the train would never reach Baltimore.  Then there was a long delay at Havre de Grace.  A hot box had to be cooled at Wilmington.  Would it never get on?  Only in passing around the city of Philadelphia did the train not seem to go slow.  Philip stood upon the platform and watched for the Boltons’ house, fancied he could distinguish its roof among the trees, and wondered how Ruth would feel if she knew he was so near her.

Then came Jersey, everlasting Jersey, stupid irritating Jersey, where the passengers are always asking which line they are on, and where they are to come out, and whether they have yet reached Elizabeth.  Launched into Jersey, one has a vague notion that he is on many lines and no one in particular, and that he is liable at any moment to come to Elizabeth.  He has no notion what Elizabeth is, and always resolves that the next time he goes that way, he will look out of the window and see what it is like; but he never does.  Or if he does, he probably finds that it is Princeton or something of that sort.  He gets annoyed, and never can see the use of having different names for stations in Jersey.  By and by. there is Newark, three or four Newarks apparently; then marshes; then long rock cuttings devoted to the advertisements of ’patent medicines and ready-made, clothing, and New York tonics for Jersey agues, and Jersey City is reached.

On the ferry-boat Philip bought an evening paper from a boy crying “’Ere’s the Evening Gram, all about the murder,” and with breathless haste—­ran his eyes over the following: 

Shockingmurder!!!

Tragedy in high life!!  A beautiful woman shoots A distinguished
confederate soldier at the southern hotel!!!  Jealousy the cause!!!

This morning occurred another of those shocking murders which have become the almost daily food of the newspapers, the direct result of the socialistic doctrines and woman’s rights agitations, which have made every woman the avenger of her own wrongs, and all society the hunting ground for her victims.

About nine o’clock a lady deliberately shot a man dead in the public parlor of the Southern Hotel, coolly remarking, as she threw down her revolver and permitted herself to be taken into custody, “He brought it on himself.”  Our reporters were immediately dispatched to the scene of the tragedy, and gathered the following particulars.

Yesterday afternoon arrived at the hotel from Washington, Col.  George Selby and family, who had taken passage and were to sail at noon to-day in the steamer Scotia for England.