the
window. "I can't imagine where they put them all; though I've never
seen a train like this. But what has become of our Canadian friends?"

George said he did not know, and Edgar resumed:

"I'm rather taken with the girl--strikes me as intelligent as well as
fetching. The man's a grim old savage, but I'm inclined to think he's
prosperous; when a fellow says he can't afford cigars I generally
suspect him of being rich. It's a pity that stinginess is one of the
roads to affluence."

The car, glaringly lighted by huge lamps, was crowded and very hot, and
after a while George went out on to the rear platform for a breath of
air. The train had now left the city, and glancing back as it swung
around a curve, he wondered how one locomotive could haul the long row
of heavy cars. Then he looked out across the wide expanse of grass
that stretched away in the moonlight to the dim blur of woods on the
horizon. Here and there clumps of willows dotted the waste, but it lay
silent and empty, without sign of human life. The air was pleasantly
fresh after heavy rain; and the stillness of the vast prairie was
soothing by contrast with the tumult from which they had recently
escaped.

Lighting his pipe, George leaned contentedly on the rail. Then
remembering what the Canadian had said, he thought of his old friend
Marston, a man of charm and varied talents, whom he had long admired
and often rather humbly referred to. It was hard to understand how
Dick had failed in Canada, and harder still to see why he had made his
plodding comrade his executor; for George, having seldom had occasion
to exert his abilities, had no great belief in them. He had suffered
keenly when Sylvia married Dick, but the homage he had offered her had
always been characterized by diffidence, springing from a doubt that
she could be content with him; and after a sharp struggle he succeeded
in convincing himself that his wound did not matter if she were happier
with the more brilliant man. He had entertained no hard thoughts of
her: Sylvia could do no wrong. His love for her sprang rather from
respect than passion; in his eyes she was all that a woman ought to be.

In the meanwhile his new friends were discussing him in a car farther
back along the train.

"I'm glad I had that Englishman by me in the crowd," the man remarked.
"He's cool and kept his head, did what was needed and nothing else. I
allow you owe him something for bringing you throug