CHAPTER XVI — THE SECOND ENCOUNTER CHAPTER XVII — CROSSING THE CHANNEL CHAPTER XVIII — BATTLING OLD BONES CHAPTER XIX — VIVIAN AIRS HER OPINIONS CHAPTER XX — ONCE MORE AT BURTON'S INN CHAPTER XXI — DISTURBING NEWS CHAPTER XXII — THE HOLLOW OF HER HAND CHAPTER XXIII — SARA WRANDALL'S DECISION CHAPTER XXIV — THE JURY OF FOUR CHAPTER XXV — RENUNCIATION CHAPTER I — MARCH COMES IN LIKE THE LION The train, which had roared through a withering gale of sleet all the way up from New York, came to a standstill, with many an ear-splitting sigh, alongside the little station, and a reluctant porter opened his vestibule door to descend to the snow-swept platform: a solitary passenger had reached the journey's end. The swirl of snow and sleet screaming out of the blackness at the end of the station-building enveloped the porter in an instant, and cut his ears and neck with stinging force as he turned his back against the gale. A pair of lonely, half-obscured platform lights gleamed fatuously at the top of their icy posts at each end of the station; two or three frost-encrusted windows glowed dully in the side of the building, while one shone brightly where the operator sat waiting for the passing of No. 33. The train itself was dark. Frosty windows, pelted for miles by the furious gale, white outside but black within, protected the snug travellers who slept the sleep of the hurried and thought not of the storm that beat about their