Mrs. Varian read on and on until her eyes grew weary, then closing
them, she leaned back with a tired sigh, and fell to musing.
Perhaps the musings were not pleasant, for presently she sighed deeply
again, and raising her head began to look around her in a listless way
at the passengers.
She gave a violent start, and stared fixedly at the handsome head and
broad shoulders a few seats ahead.
Could it be? Or was she dreaming? Surely those outlines were too
familiar for her to be mistaken.
It was _he_! She saw him lean forward to answer the women in the next
seat. The outline of his handsome profile was clear for a moment.
She fell back almost stunned, secretly railing at her ill fortune.
Janetta, the maid, leaned forward from the back seat.
“Do you wish anything, madame? You seem ill.”
She whispered back:
“Who are those people in front of us there?”
“Some people from your own town, madame; a Mrs. Flint, her brother, and
her servant. The lady has been sick, and I heard the conductor telling
some one back there that they were going South for her health.”
“Ah!” and Mrs. Varian shut her eyes and relapsed into pallor and
silence again.
Janetta, good, faithful soul, watched her uneasily, feeling she was not
well.
She was inwardly ill indeed--raging at the trick fate had played on her
this day.
“To endure this thirty-six hours--the sight of him whenever I open my
eyes--it is impossible!” she said to herself, in a sort of blank terror.
Janetta touched her gently, whispering:
“You are very pale--I hope not ill.”
She could fancy that she was ghastly to evoke this anxiety, so she
answered:
“I do not feel quite my usual self. I am thinking of not going on
to-night any further than Charlottesville, and resuming our journey
to-morrow, if I am better.”
“Perhaps that is the better plan,” the maid returned, respectfully,
though secretly rather disappointed at delaying the journey.
But she was used to her mistress and her capricious notions. She had
simply to obey.
So when they reached the university town a little further on, the
mistress and maid left the train, to the great relief of Everard Dawn,
who thought:
“I was right. She is _en route_ for Washington. She will board the
Northern train at this point. But how lonely it seemed, just the two
women traveling together. I remember she used to be one of those
dependent women, always preferring a man’s escort. Arthur ought to be
with her now, poor Paulina!”
Mrs. Flint exclaimed:
“Was not that Mrs. Varian leaving the train?”
“I believe so,” he replied, carelessly; and then the brief wait at the
station being over, the train rushed on into the deep gloom of twilight.
It was scarcely a mile further on that, lying back with shut eyes
and confused thoughts that mostly centered around the lonely figure
of the woman just gone, he was roused by a terrible roar, a jumble
of horrible sound, movement, and stifled shrieks of fear and pain,
then consciousness gave way, and he lay still and death-like under
the _débris_ of a dreadful railway wreck--a collision caused by the
misplacing of a switch.
* * * * *
Mrs. Varian revived out in the cold evening air, and she congratulated
herself on her lucky escape, as she and Janetta sought the nearest
hotel.
They had supper, and went to their rooms, a luxurious connecting suite.
Mrs. Varian was nervous and hysterically gay, laughing to herself at
the clever _coup_ by which she had outwitted fate.
“I wonder if he saw me--if he guessed why I left the train--but perhaps
he was glad of it,” she thought.
She walked restlessly up and down the room, chafing under a weight that
seemed to rest like a pall on her spirits--a weight of prescient gloom.
“Mrs. Varian, you are nervous. You ought to take some drops and retire,
or you will not be fit to resume your journey in the morning,” the maid
remonstrated, when she had watched her restless movements some time in
silence.
“You are right Janetta, and I will take your advice. I should like to
sleep, for my thoughts are not pleasant to-night,” the lady returned,
docilely.
But sleep would not come to the heavy lids, for all she tried to
deceive Janetta by lying as still as a mouse, with her cheek in the
hollow of her little hand.
Strange tears crept under the black-fringed lashes and dampened the
pillow. The maid caught a stifled sob.
“Ah, madame, it is bad dreams you’re having!” she murmured, stroking
the dark head gently.
“Yes, yes, bad dreams, Janetta.”
“And no wonder, with the noise and confusion going on down-stairs,
tramping like horses the last ten minutes. I can’t imagine what all the
racket means, and if you don’t object, madame, I’ll go down and ask the
clerk to have the noise stopped, so you may sleep better.”
“You may go.”
When Janetta was gone, she sat up in bed, throwing her jeweled hands
wildly about crying:
“How I deceived that kind, faithful creature! I have not slept a
moment. I have been too wretched. There is too great a weight on my
heart--the whole weight of cruel years piled into one wild agony
to-night! Oh, death were better than this pain!”
Janetta was gone fully fifteen minutes before she returned, pale, and
tearfully excited, wringing her hands.
“Oh, madame, you are still awake! Then thank God for the lucky
inspiration that came to you at Charlottesville to leave the train!
It was surely Heaven that prompted you, for else we might now both be
dead!”
“Janetta!” wildly.
“Oh, madame, the train was wrecked scarcely a mile further on, and
people were killed--some of them--others were wounded, and may die!
They are bringing them back here--that was the noise we heard--the
tramping of feet that woke you. Oh, I have shocked you, breaking this
so abruptly; but I did not think, I was so excited. Pardon me, dear
lady. Of course there were none of your friends, as all were strangers
to us.”
“All strangers!” gasped Mrs. Varian in a hollow voice, with terror in
her eyes, as she clung to Janetta’s soothing hands.
The excited maid ran on breathlessly:
“Those people you noticed in front of us, madame--oh, it was dreadful!
The sick woman escaped unhurt, but the servant was badly injured, and
the man--Mr. Dawn they say his name is--was killed outright.”