“You say old man Grover ain’t dead yet?” Mr. Hooker was growling resentfully, even indignantly.

“He ain’t expected to live till night, sir, poor old man,” replied the agent.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” roared Mr. Hooker.  “I don’t see any sense in a man of his age hanging on like this.  He’s eighty-three.  My time is valuable”—­looking at his big silver watch—­“and I can’t afford to hang around here if he’s going to act like this.”  The agent stared after him as if he were looking at a maniac.  Mr. Hooker set off in the direction of old Mr. Grover’s house, which had been pointed out to him by a gaping small boy.  “I’ll go up and see about it,” he remarked, as he stepped across a wide rivulet in the middle of the main street.  The Somerset Hotel was situated on the most beautiful point of land touching that trim little lake which attracted hundreds of city people annually by its summer wiles.  It was too sedate and quiet to be fashionable; the select few who went there sought rest from the frivolities of the world.  Eleanor Thursdale had spent one tiresome but proper season there immediately after the death of her father.  She hated everything in connection with the place except the little old-fashioned church at the extreme end of the village street, fully half a mile from the hotel.  She had chosen it, after romantic reflection, as the sanctuary in which she should become the wife of the man she loved, spurning the great church in town and one of its loveless matches.

The forenoon is left to the imagination of the reader,—­with all of its unsettled plans, its doubts and misgivings, its despairs and its failures, its subterfuges and its strategies, its aggravations and complaints.  Bell-boys carried surreptitious notes from room to room; assurances, hopes, and reassurances passed one another in systematic confusion.  Love was trying to find its way out of the maze.

Immediately after luncheon Dauntless set out to discover his faithless cousin.  Eleanor kept close to her room, in readiness for instant flight.  The necessary Mr. Derby had his instructions to remain where he could be found without trouble.  Mrs. Van Truder, taking up Eleanor’s battles, busied herself and every one else in the impossible task of locating the young woman’s trunks, which, according to uncertain reports, had gone mysteriously astray.  Moreover, she had prepared a telegram to the young lady’s mother, assuring her that she was quite safe; but Mr. Dauntless boldly intercepted Mr. Van Truder on his way to the desk.

“Allow me,” he remarked, deliberately taking the despatch from the old gentleman.  “I’ll send it from the station.  Don’t bother about it, Mr. Van Truder.”  He drove through the village, but did not stop at the station; his instructions to the driver did not include a pause anywhere.  It is not necessary to relate what took place when he descended upon the unfortunate Jim; it is sufficient to say that he dragged him from his sick wife’s bedside and berated him soundly for his treachery.  Then it was all rearranged,—­the hapless Jim being swept into promises which he could not break, even with death staring his wife in the face.  The agitated Mr. Dauntless drove back to the hotel with a new set of details perfected.  This time nothing should go wrong.