CHAPTER XIV.


Doctor McCall had been five minutes too late for the first train,
and so had been delayed for the express in which Kitty started on her
adventure. Commonplace accidents determine commonplace lives, was a
favorite maxim of the Berrytown Illuminati. The Supreme Intelligence
whom they complimented with respect could not be expected to hold such
petty trifles or petty lives in His controlling hand.

Doctor McCall had seen Catharine when she first entered the station.
Her very manner had the air of flight and secresy. Puzzled and
annoyed, he sat down in the rear of the car, himself unseen. When they
reached Philadelphia it was not yet dawn. The passengers rushed out
of the cars: Kitty sat quiet. She had never slept outside of the
Book-house before. She looked out at the dim-lighted dépôt, at the
slouching dark figures that stole through it from time to time, the
engines, with their hot red eyes, sweeping back and forward in the
distance, breaking the night with portentous shrieks. Where should she
go? She had never been in a hotel in her life: she had no money. If
she ventured into the night she would be arrested, no doubt, as a
vagrant. She had a gallant heart to take care of Hugh Guinness's
life, but her poor little woman's body was quaking in deadly fear for
herself. In a moment a decent mulatto woman, whom McCall had sent,
came from the waiting-room into the deserted car.

"There is a room for ladies, where you can be comfortable until
daybreak, madam," she said respectfully.