That night he turned in, greatly depressed. Bad dreams assailed his
slumbers--menacing ones like the visions that annoyed _Eugene Aram_.
And every time he awoke and sat up in his bunk, shaken by the swaying
car, he realised that Romance had also its tragic phases--a sample of
which he was now enduring. And yet, miserable as he was, a horrid sort
of joy neutralised the misery when he recollected that it _was_ Romance,
after all, and that he, George Z. Green, was in it up to his neck.
A grey morning--a wet and pallid sky lowering over the brown North
Carolina fields--this was his waking view from his tumbled bunk.
Neither his toilet nor his breakfast dispelled the gloom; certainly the
speeding landscape did not.
He sat grimly in the observation car, reviewing a dispiriting landscape
set with swamps, razorbacks, buzzards, and niggers.
Luncheon aided him very little. _She_ had not appeared at all. Either
her own misery and fright were starving her to death or she preferred to
take her meals in her stateroom. He hoped fervently the latter might be
the case; that murder might not be added to whatever else he evidently
was suspected of committing.
Like the ticket he had seen her purchase, his own ticket took him as far
as Ormond. Of course he could go on if she did. She could go to the West
Indies and ultimately to Brazil. So could he. They were on the main
travelled road to almost anywhere.
Nevertheless, he was on the watch at St. Augustine; and when he saw her
come forth hastily and get into a bus emblazoned with the name and
escutcheon of the Hotel Royal Orchid, he got in also.
The bus was full. Glancing at the other occupants of the bus, she
included him in her brief review, and to his great relief he saw her
incurious blue eyes pass calmly to the next countenance.
A dreadful, almost hysterical impulse assailed him to suddenly rise and
say: "I am George Z. Green!"--merely to observe the cataclysmic effect
on her.
But it did not seem so funny to him on after thoughts, for the chances
appeared to be that she could not survive the shock. Which scared him;
and he looked about nervously for fear somebody who knew him might be
among the passengers, and might address him by name.
In due time the contents of the bus trooped into the vast corridors of
the Hotel Royal Orchid. One by one they registered; and on the ledger
Green read her name with palpitating heart--Miss Marie Wiltz and Maid.
And heard her say to the clerk that her maid had been delayed and would
arrive on the next train.
It never occurred to this unimaginative man to sign any name but his own
to the register that was shoved toward him. Which perfectly proves his
guilelessness and goodness.
He went to his room, cleansed from his person the stains of travel, and,
having no outer clothes to change to, smoked a cigarette and gazed
moodily from the window.
Now, his window gave on the drive-encircled fountain before the front
entrance to the hotel; and, as he was standing there immersed in tobacco
smoke and gloom, he was astonished to see the girl herself come out
hastily, travelling satchel in hand, and spring lightly into a cab. It
was one of those victorias which are stationed for hire in front of such
southern hotels; he could see her perfectly plainly; saw the darkey
coachman flourish his whip; saw the vehicle roll away.
The next instant he seized his new satchel, swept his brand new toilet
articles into it, snapped it, picked up hat and cane, and dashed down
stairs to the desk.
Here he paid his bill, ran out, and leaped into a waiting victoria.
"Where did that other cab drive?" he demanded breathlessly to his negro
coachman. "Didn't you hear what the young lady said to her driver?"
"Yaas, suh. De young lady done say she's in a pow'ful hurry, suh. She
'low she gotta git to Ormond."
"Ormond! There's no train!"
"Milk-train, suh."
"What! Is she going to Ormond on a milk-train?"
"Yaas, suh."
"All right, then. Drive me to the station."
It was not very far. She was standing alone on the deserted platform,
her bag at her feet, his overcoat lying across it. Her head was bent,
and she did not notice him at first. Never had he seen a youthful figure
so exquisitely eloquent of despair.
The milk-train was about an hour overdue, which would make it about due
in the South. Green seated himself on a wooden bench and folded his
hands over the silver crook of his walking-stick. The situation was now
perfectly clear to him. She had come down from her room, and had seen
his name on the register, had been seized by a terrible panic, and had
fled.
Had he been alone and unobserved, he might have attempted to knock his
brains out with his walking-stick. He desired to, earnestly, when he
realised what an ass he had been to sign the register.
She had begun to pace the platform, nervously, halting and leaning
forward from time to time to scan impatiently the long, glittering
perspective of the metals.
It had begun to grow dusk. Lanterns on switches and semaphores flashed
out red, green, blue, white, stringing their jewelled sparks far away
into the distance.
To and fro she paced the empty platform, passing and repassing him. And
he began to notice presently that she looked at him rather intently each
time.
He wondered whether she suspected his identity. Guiltless of anything
that he could remember having done, nevertheless he shivered guiltily
every time she glanced at him.
Then the unexpected happened; and he fairly shook in his shoes as she
marched deliberately up to him.
"I beg your pardon," she said in a very sweet and anxious voice, "but
might I ask if you happen to be going to Ormond?"
He was on his feet, hat in hand, by this time; his heart and pulses
badly stampeded; but he managed to answer calmly that he was going to
Ormond.
"There is only a milk-train, I understand," she said.
"So I understand."
"Do you think there will be any difficulty in my obtaining permission to
travel on it? The station-master says that permission is not given to
ladies unaccompanied."
She looked at him almost imploringly.
"I really must go on that train," she said in a low voice. "It is
desperately necessary. Could you--could you manage to arrange it for me?
I would be so grateful!--so deeply grateful!"
"I'll do what I can," said that unimaginative man. "Probably bribery can
fix it----"
"There might be--if--if--you would be willing--if you didn't object--I
know it sounds very strange--but my case is so desperate----" She
checked herself, flushing a delicate pink. And he waited.
Then, very resolutely she looked up at him:
"Would you--could you p-pretend that I am--am--your sister?"
"Certainly," he said. An immense happiness seized him. He was not only
up to his neck in Romance. It was already over his head, and he was out
of his depth, and swimming.
"Certainly," he repeated quietly, controlling his joy by a supreme
effort. "That would be the simplest way out of it, after all."
She said earnestly, almost solemnly: "If you will do this generous thing
for--for a stranger--in very deep perplexity and trouble--that stranger
will remain in your debt while life lasts!"
She had not intended to be dramatic; she may not have thought she was;
but the tears again glimmered in her lovely eyes, and the situation
seemed tense enough to George Z. Green.
Moreover, he felt that complications already were arising--complications
which he had often read of and sometimes dreamed of. Because, as he
stood there in the southern dusk, looking at this slim, young girl, he
began to realise that never before in all his life had he gazed upon
anything half as beautiful.
Very far away a locomotive whistled: they both turned, and saw the
distant headlight glittering on the horizon like a tiny star.
"W-would it be best for us to t-take your name or mine--in case they ask
us?" she stammered, flushing deeply.
"Perhaps," he said pleasantly, "you might be more likely to remember
yours in an emergency."
"I think so," she said naively; "it is rather difficult for me to
deceive anybody. My name is Marie Wiltz."
"Then I am Mr. Wiltz, your brother, for an hour or two."
"If you please," she murmured.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to add, "Mr. George Z. Wiltz," but
he managed to check himself.
The great, lumbering train came rolling in; the station agent looked
very sharply through his spectacles at Miss Wiltz when he saw her with
Green, but being a Southerner, he gallantly assumed that it was all
right.
One of the train crew placed two wooden chairs for them in the partly
empty baggage car; and there they sat, side by side, while the big,
heavy milk cans were loaded aboard, and a few parcels shoved into their
car. Then the locomotive tooted leisurely; there came a jolt, a resonant
clash; and the train was under way.