oney, once more I left Victoria Station for Paris. Once
more, an unwilling victim, I heard the "wild, fantastic, fitful note of
Triton's breathing shell." At Calais I took my place in what the French
call a coupe; that is, the end compartment on a car, which, by paying
ten francs extra, you can occupy alone. It is unlike the other
compartments in that there are no arms dividing it into seats; so one
can lie full length on the cushion.

Before this night I speak of I had cherished a theory as to what I
should do in the event of an accident happening to any train whereon I
was a passenger. In such a case I proposed to catch on to some object
and hold on, leaving my body and limbs to swing freely. My theory ever
since that night has been that I will go just wherever the breaking
timbers and flying furniture send me. I had fallen into a sound sleep
before the train started, and was aroused from it to find myself hurled
about the compartment much as a stout boy would shake a mouse in a cage,
and quite as helpless.

Our train was off the track. My carriage was near the engine, and the
momentum of the long train forced the car in the rear of mine up on end,
and it appeared as if it would fall over and crush me. I thought my hour
had come, and I cried out, "At last!" There was no fear or terror in it,
but merely the thought that after many months of almost incessant
travel, and necessarily of peril, "at last" my fate had come. It had
not. How good heaven would have been if it had sent me to my doom then
and there!

The accident had occurred at Marquise, a small town sixteen miles from
Calais and four from Boulogne, the first stopping place of the express.
It was a very long train, but the carriages were all empty except two. A
heavy excursion train had left Paris, and the cars were going back
empty. What lessened the number of passengers was the fact that it was
Sunday night. The English do not travel on Sundays as a rule. So,
fortunately, a great loss of life was prevented. However, two were
killed and half of the remaining passengers injured. My own injuries
were slight and consisted of trifling cuts on the face and hands from
flying glass. But, far worse than that, I had received a nervous shock,
which took some weeks to wear off, and during the rest of my journey to
Paris and return to London I was as nervous as a timid woman. I stayed
at Marquise until noon, when the express passing at that hour made a
special stop to p