red himself picking
little threads from his clothes, like a spider's cobweb, and he observed
how with each minute he drew his breath more freely. Sometimes it seemed
to him that the wheels of the tremendous express train were not turning
swiftly enough on their axles, and that he himself ought to put his hands
to the wheels to hasten on the new health-giving impressions and place
them behind him like thin curtains, so that the partitions dividing him
from that dangerous, fatal magnet which he had left behind should grow
denser and denser.

In New Haven, where the train halted for a short time, a negro with
sandwiches and a boy with newspapers passed through the train. Frederick
bought one of the papers, and found the whole disaster of the _Roland_
warmed up over again in connection with the sensational reports of the
hearing in the City Hall. On that bright winter day his mood was too gay
and peaceful to suffer the appalling impressions of the sinking of the
vessel and its drowning mass of humanity to revive in his soul. To be
sure, he had had absolutely no right to escape, and he was still somewhat
ashamed that the regnant powers had preferred him to so many innocent
brothers and sisters. On that account, there had been a time when he
would have given back his life in a passion of embittered pity and
glowing indignation; for there was no sin great enough to justify that
horrible, brutal drowning on the seas and no merit great enough to
justify escape from it. But on this winter day, on his flight from New
York, his rescue filled him with nothing but sincere gratitude. Captain
von Kessel and the many others that had gone down with the _Roland_ were
dead and so were removed from all pain and suffering. Everything about
Frederick this day breathed an atmosphere of convalescence and
reconciliation.

All the way from New Haven to Meriden he regaled himself with the sketch
of Ingigerd's life that appeared in the papers. He could scarcely keep
from laughing. Lilienfeld displayed a positively poetical, exuberant
imagination. Though Ingigerd's father was of German parentage and her
mother a French Swiss, Ingigerd figured as the scion of a noble Swedish
family, and the body of a relative of hers was reported to be resting in
the Riddarholms-Kyrka in Stockholm. The impresario well knew that
Americans are fascinated by a single drop of royal blood.

"Poor little thing!" thought Frederick, as he folded up the newspaper.
Then, at