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"Certainly," he repeated quietly, controlling his joy by a supreme effort. "That would be the simplest way out of it, after all."

She said earnestly, almost solemnly: "If you will do this generous thing for – for a stranger – in very deep perplexity and trouble – that stranger will remain in your debt while life lasts!"

She had not intended to be dramatic; she may not have thought she was; but the tears again glimmered in her lovely eyes, and the situation seemed tense enough to George Z. Green.

Moreover, he felt that complications already were arising – complications which he had often read of and sometimes dreamed of. Because, as he stood there in the southern dusk, looking at this slim, young girl, he began to realise that never before in all his life had he gazed upon anything half as beautiful.

Very far away a locomotive whistled: they both turned, and saw the distant headlight glittering on the horizon like a tiny star.

"W-would it be best for us to t-take your name or mine – in case they ask us?" she stammered, flushing deeply.

"Perhaps," he said pleasantly, "you might be more likely to remember yours in an emergency."

"I think so," she said naïvely; "it is rather difficult for me to deceive anybody. My name is Marie Wiltz."

"Then I am Mr. Wiltz, your brother, for an hour or two."

"If you please," she murmured.

It had been on the tip of his tongue to add, "Mr. George Z. Wiltz," but he managed to check himself.

The great, lumbering train came rolling in; the station agent looked very sharply through his spectacles at Miss Wiltz when he saw her with Green, but being a Southerner, he gallantly assumed that it was all right.

One of the train crew placed two wooden chairs for them in the partly empty baggage car; and there they sat, side by side, while the big, heavy milk cans were loaded aboard, and a few parcels shoved into their car. Then the locomotive tooted leisurely; there came a jolt, a resonant clash; and the train was under way.

XXIV

For a while the baggage master fussed about the car, sorting out packages for Ormond; then, courteously inquiring whether he could do anything for them, and learning that he could not, he went forward into his own den, leaving Marie Wiltz and George Z. Green alone in a baggage car dimly illumined by a small and smoky lamp.

Being well-bred young people, they broke the tension of the situation gracefully and naturally, pretending to find it amusing to travel in a milk train to a fashionable southern resort.

And now that the train was actually under way and speeding southward through the night, her relief from anxiety was very plain to him. He could see her relax; see the frightened and hunted look in her eyes die out, the natural and delicious colour return to her cheeks.

As they conversed with amiable circumspection and pleasant formality, he looked at her whenever he dared without seeming to be impertinent; and he discovered that the face she had worn since he had first seen her was not her natural expression; that her features in repose or in fearless animation were winning and almost gay.

She had a delightful mouth, sweet and humourous; a delicate nose and chin, and two very blue and beautiful eyes that looked at him at moments so confidently, so engagingly, that the knowledge of what her expression would be if she knew who he was smote him at moments, chilling his very marrow.

What an astonishing situation! How he would have scorned a short story with such a situation in it! And he thought of Williams – poor old Williams! – and mentally begged his pardon.

For he understood now that real life was far stranger than fiction. He realised at last that Romance loitered ever around the corner; that Opportunity was always gently nudging one's elbow.

There lay his overcoat on the floor, trailing over her satchel. He looked at it so fixedly that she noticed the direction of his gaze, glanced down, blushed furiously.

"It may seem odd to you that I am travelling with a man's overcoat," she said, "but it will seem odder yet when I tell you that I don't know how I came by it."

"That is odd," he admitted smilingly. "To whom does it belong?"

Her features betrayed the complicated emotions that successively possessed her – perplexity, anxiety, bashfulness.

After a moment she said in a low voice: "You have done so much for me already – you have been so exceedingly nice to me – that I hesitate to ask of you anything more – "

"Please ask!" he urged. "It will be really a happiness for me to serve you."

Surprised at his earnestness and the unembarrassed warmth of his reply, she looked up at him gratefully after a moment.

"Would you," she said, "take charge of that overcoat for me and send it back to its owner?"

He laughed nervously: "Is that all? Why, of course I shall! I'll guarantee that it is restored to its rightful owner if you wish."

"Will you? If you do that– " she drew a long, sighing breath, "it will be a relief to me – such a wonderful relief!" She clasped her gloved hands tightly on her knee, smiled at him breathlessly.

"I don't suppose you will ever know what you have done for me. I could never adequately express my deep, deep gratitude to you – "

"But – I am doing nothing except shipping back an overcoat – "

"Ah – if you only knew what you really are doing for me! You are helping me in the direst hour of need I ever knew. You are aiding me to regain control over my own destiny! You are standing by me in the nick of time, sheltering me, encouraging me, giving me a moment's respite until I can become mistress of my own fate once more."

The girl had ended with a warmth, earnestness and emotion which she seemed to be unable to control. Evidently she had been very much shaken, and in the blessed relief from the strain the reaction was gathering intensity.

They sat in silence for a few moments; then she looked up, nervously twisting her gloved fingers.

"I am sorry," she said in a low voice, "not to exhibit reticence and proper self-control before a – a stranger… But I – I have been – rather badly – frightened."

"Nothing need frighten you now," he said.

"I thought so, too. I thought that as soon as I left New York it would be all right. But – but the first thing I saw in my stateroom was that overcoat! And the next thing that occurred was – was almost – stupefying. Until I boarded this milk-train, I think I must have been almost irresponsible from sheer fright."

"What frightened you?" he asked, trembling internally.

"I – I can't tell you. It would do no good. You could not help me."

"Yet you say I have already aided you."

"Yes… That is true… And you will send that overcoat back, won't you?"

"Yes," he said. "To remember it, I'd better put it on, I think."

The southern night had turned chilly, and he was glad to bundle into his own overcoat again.

"From where will you ship it?" she asked anxiously.

"From Ormond – "

"Please don't!"

"Why?"

"Because," she said desperately, "the owner of that coat might trace it to Ormond and – and come down there."