four hours late yesterday."

"Good God! Is there no other train?"

"There's a cattle train lying up there on the switch now. Pulls out soon
as this one leaves."

"And what time will that reach Saint Louis?"

"No telling, depends upon what luck it has; possibly by four or five
o'clock."

The artist did not wait to hear more. Anything was better than remaining
here on an uncertainty. He sped away up the track to where lay the long
line of waiting cars.

He had been awakened by the stopping of the train, and a realization of
affairs had flashed over him like lightning. He was far away from Saint
Louis, and at six o'clock that night he had an appointment with Eva
Delorme.

The effects of his self-abasement and the strong liquor had worn away.
The fever and the delirium of last night were as a bad dream. He would
hasten back to Eva. He had sinned--fallen almost to the lowest
depth--but it was over now. He would see Evelin March no more. If Eva
accepted him they would go away at once. Oh, if kind Providence would
but help him to reach the appointment in time!

The conductor whom he asked, noting his anxiety, assured him that it was
quite probable they would reach the city by five o'clock.

It was growing light rather slowly. The sky was overcast with clouds,
and the air had the feeling of a storm. It seemed to Julian that the
train crept along like a farm wagon. For a long time he looked out at
the gray monotonous landscape, then he lay down on the cushioned benches
of the caboose and tried to sleep. Now and then he would doze a little,
but his mind was too full of anxiety and impatience to obtain rest.
Terrifying dreams forced themselves upon him, and he awoke often, sick
and frightened.

And so through that dreary autumn day the heavy train rumbled along
across the wide stretch of country that divided him from that which fate
was at that moment busily preparing--an experience as strange, as weird,
as terribly fantastic as was ever accorded to human being before.

The little Swiss cottage of Julian Goetze was very silent that day. All
through the forenoon no one entered, although the street door was
unlocked and the studio door was open. As the afternoon wore away, the
clouds and smoke that hung heavily over the city seemed to settle lower
and lower, until within the narrow hall-way it was almost dark.

Just after the clock on the mantel of the inner room had chimed three, a
cloaked figure passed through the