Heathersleigh Homecoming by Michael Phillips

old-fashioned romance and mystery. I don’t want to have to think. It makes me too sad.”
    â€œBecause Father’s gone?”
    â€œAnd George . . . and Amanda.”
    â€œ I’m still here, Mother,” teased Catharine with a cheerful smile.
    â€œI know, dear,” replied Jocelyn. “And you can’t know how thankful I am for it! Your being with me is the one thing that makes me able to keep my head up at all.”
    â€œMother!”
    â€œI mean it, dear. But at the same time, it is so incomplete when our whole family isn’t together. Don’t you feel it?”
    Catharine nodded. “Of course. George is my best friend,” she said. “Well, except for you , I mean. But they’ll be back, Mother. We just have to keep believing and praying for that day when we are all together again.”
    â€œWhen you say that, do you include your sister?”
    â€œOf course,” replied Catharine. “I pray every day that Amanda will come home.”
    â€œI suppose I need to take a lesson from you,” said Jocelyn with a thin smile. “But I have to admit, praying with faith gets more and more difficult the longer she is gone. I know I have to keep hoping, but—”
    The tears—always nearby—suddenly arrived on the scene again without warning.
    The next instant Catharine was on her feet and at her mother’s side. She knelt down beside her mother’s chair and put her arms around her. Jocelyn wept freely for a few moments on the great strong shoulder of her youngest daughter, who had become a very compassionate young woman.
    Gradually the two women eased back. Jocelyn dabbed at her eyes, then kissed Catharine affectionately.
    â€œThank you, dear,” she said. “I hadn’t had my cry yet today.” She tried to laugh. “It always makes me feel better to get it over with.”
    She drew in a deep breath, then rose.
    â€œBut I still think I need that mystery,” she said. “Perhaps I shall peruse the shelves a bit.—That is, after tea,” she added. “I think I hear Sarah coming with the tray.”
    After two stops and the passage of about four hours, Amanda’s train arrived in Milan. It was early in the afternoon.
    A three-hour layover was scheduled before the next train for France. Ramsay was sure to catch up with her now, Amanda thoughthopelessly. He might even have called ahead to notify the authorities to hold her until he arrived.
    The train stopped and the doors opened. Half expecting to be arrested on the spot, tentatively she picked up her carpetbag and crept out. She stepped onto the platform. No uniformed guards were waiting. But Ramsay would probably appear any moment. Her brain was in such a fog she did not think that it would have been impossible for him to arrive ahead of her.
    With three dozen other passengers Amanda walked into the station, found a vacant seat, and sat down. Feeling hungry and more forlorn than she had ever been in her life, Amanda was too despondent even to find something to eat. She was beginning to feel weak. She had not eaten since sometime yesterday.
    Tears of hopelessness began to fill her eyes.
    Hardly realizing what she was doing, she began silently to pray. “God, I was so stupid for not listening. I never thought I needed anyone, but now I realize I do need your help. Please, God . . . help me.”
    Amanda glanced up.
    Across the station a lady was eying her strangely.

 9 
Clandestine Beacon
    Even as Charles Rutherford was bound north by sea, on England’s opposite coast, Irishman Doyle McCrogher and Charles’ friend and former parliamentary colleague Chalmondley Beauchamp sat high in a lighthouse situated on a coastal plateau on North Hawsker Head east of the Yorkshire moors. These were times which made of men both heroes and traitors, and Beauchamp had chosen for his personal destiny the latter.
    McCrogher was at the