lf,
when the wreck came."

"But you said you didn't care for him!" I protested, my heavy masculine
mind unable to jump the gaps in her story. And then, without the
slightest warning, I realized that she was crying. She shook off my hand
and fumbled for her handkerchief, and failing to find it, she accepted
the one I thrust into her wet fingers.

Then, little by little, she told me from the handkerchief, a sordid
story of a motor trip in the mountains without Mrs. Curtis, of a lost
road and a broken car, and a rainy night when they--she and Sullivan,
tramped eternally and did not get home. And of Mrs. Curtis, when they
got home at dawn, suddenly grown conventional and deeply shocked. Of
her own proud, half-disdainful consent to make possible the hackneyed
compromising situation by marrying the rascal, and then--of his
disappearance from the train. It was so terrible to her, such a
Heaven-sent relief to me, in spite of my rage against Sullivan, that I
laughed aloud. At which she looked at me over the handkerchief.

"I know it's funny," she said, with a catch in her breath. "When I think
that I nearly married a murderer--and didn't--I cry for sheer joy." Then
she buried her face and cried again.

"Please don't," I protested unsteadily. "I won't be responsible if you
keep on crying like that. I may forget that I have a capital charge
hanging over my head, and that I may be arrested at any moment."

That brought her out of the handkerchief at once. "I meant to be so
helpful," she said, "and I've thought of nothing but myself! There were
some things I meant to tell you. If Jennie was--what you say, then I
understand why she came to me just before I left. She had been packing
my things and she must have seen what condition I was in, for she came
over to me when I was getting my wraps on, to leave, and said, 'Don't do
it, Miss West, I beg you won't do it; you'll be sorry ever after.' And
just then Mrs. Curtis came in and Jennie slipped out."

"That was all?"

"No. As we went through the station the telegraph operator gave Har--Mr.
Sullivan a message. He read it on the platform, and it excited him
terribly. He took his sister aside and they talked together. He was
white with either fear or anger--I don't know which. Then, when we
boarded the train, a woman in black, with beautiful hair, who was
standing on the car platform, touched him on the arm and then drew back.
He looked at her and glanced away again, but she reeled