In the gray of the morning, when Hartley and all the hotel were still sleeping, she called a carriage, and, hurrying to the railway station, caught the early morning express for Montreal, on her way to New York. It was no time for half measures.
Three hours later, when Hartley went down to breakfast, after a night of mysteriously depressing restlessness, he found awaiting him an incoherent little note from Cordelia. Bewildered, only after many readings he gathered from it that she had been called away because of some business tangle about which she would tell him later.
"If that isn't like her, the crazy child!" was Mrs. Spaulding's cry when she heard of it all, less disturbed in spirit than Hartley had expected.
And while, indeed, he was still pondering over his surprising note from her, Cordelia herself was speeding along past the old French settlements on the banks of the upper St. Lawrence, gazing absently out at the low-eaved little cottages, and desperately asking herself, again and again, if it would be too late.
Hate wrong, as a bull hates red; Fight strong, till the wrong lies dead, For to him, just God, the fight Who smites for the sake of the right!
A woman's heart never breaks, but O how often it withers!--CORDELIA VAUGHAN, "Motherhood."
Cordelia's train crept into Montreal one hour and twenty minutes late, and it was already after three before she stepped out of the overheated car into the cool, crisp air of the station platform. She saw a uniformed attendant, and hurried to him at once.
"Can I catch the New York express?" she asked, breathlessly.
Her heart gave a sudden great bound of joy; she was not yet too late; she felt that it was a good omen, that luck was with her.
"What time does it leave?" she asked, hurriedly.
"From the other station, ma'm, some time this evenin'."
Her heart went down like lead. That meant hours more of suspense, hours more of waiting, and when time was so much to her!
She could never remember just how those dreary hours were passed. She had a dim recollection of walking, walking without a stop, along narrow and hilly little city streets, of turning restlessly stationward once more and pacing feverishly up and down platforms, with ghost-like trains coming in and going out, with ghost-like passengers hurrying this way and that way on every side of her. She heard the jangle of far-away bells, and the muffled voice of the guard calling the departing trains. She looked out at it all vaguely, and wondered if it would never end.