The Charm School
he worked under difficulties, for all of them knew her life well enough to know if there were any friend or relation or old family servant to whom, under the circumstances, she might be likely to go. He went over the catalogue of the school, looking for the address of some classmate not too far away to whom she might have fled. And then, not knowing exactly why, he turned to Miss Hayeses name and read, "Home address, Fairweather, Connecticut."
The automobile book revealed that Fairweather was a small village about sixty miles over the New York border. Further search showed that it was accessible by trolley. The conviction that she was evidently there came instantly to Austin with the finality of conviction in dreams, with the finality that mystics tell us is the characteristic of absolute truth. He looked at his watch. Time had slipped away; it was noon. He got out the geranium-colored car and with no further words to any one he started north and east.
The western part of the state of Connecticut is well watered. Austin drove for miles along the edge of a winding river brimming full to its low green banks, and then crossed a darker, wilder, wider stream. There were
[ 157 ]