e with her word glanced out of the window, she
cried: "Oh, what if something should happen to the train--what if some
horrible delay----"

And he shook himself to action.

"My dear lady," he began gravely, "you must hear me. You have made and
are making a great mistake. I am certainly not the man..."

"I _command_ you, sir," she flashed out at him--"surely you will not
disobey me--you will not make me think as well that I am making a
mistake in you."

"Ah, but that," he gasped, and caught her words gratefully, "is just
the point."

She smiled. "Please...! Let me judge! Only don't condemn me. Only
be glad you can so marvellously help a human soul to happiness--can so
generously lend yourself for these few hours to aid in my escape."

She was escaping! Well, he had nearly guessed it! The new luggage
alone was an indication. Unless her mania was for taking strangers to
be intimate friends, she wasn't fleeing a madhouse! From what did she
so determinedly run?--and how in heaven's name was he helping her? Did
she think he was going to marry her? Into what tangle had the man he
was unwittingly impersonating got himself--and in default of his
appearing on the scene in what would his absence involve poor Bulstrode?

He took off his hat and put it down on the seat--thus his fine head was
fully revealed to the lady's view.

"I do not know you," he said determinedly. "You do not know me, but
you seem bent on not acknowledging this fact or permitting me to state
it."

But even this plain statement did him no good, for she said, quite
agreeing with him:

"If I had ever spoken with you--been near you before, I would not be
here now. You see it is just your _impersonality_--your _having_ no
connection with anything in my life that makes it possible! But why,"
she exclaimed impatiently, "do you spend these few hours with me in
this meaningless warfare? You should, it seems, take the honor more
graciously, and since you are here, have consented to be here, show me
a little kindness. Since, after all, willingly or not, you are in
effect nobly helping me to do what I am doing."

And this brought him wonderfully up to the question of what was he
doing? What was he supposed to be furthering here? It was his
expression, no doubt, that made her ask with curious aptness: "Just how
much _do_ you know?"

The poor gentleman threw out his hands desperately. "You can't think
how in the dark I am! How beyond word