He could not face his acquaintance there until the first shock was over and they were a little accustomed to thinking of the calamity which had fallen upon him.

So he remained with his mother, sitting near the window which looked out upon the railroad track over which Ethie had gone.

What his thoughts were none could fathom, save as they were expressed by the dark, troubled expression of his face, which showed how much he suffered.

Perhaps he blamed himself as he went over again the incidents of that fatal night when he kept Ethelyn from the masquerade; but if he did, no one was the wiser for it, and so the first long day wore on, and the night fell again upon the inmates of the farmhouse.

The darkness was terrible to Richard, for it shut out from his view that strip of road which seemed to him a part of Ethie.