"Madam, I am deeply grateful for your courtesy and goodness. I intended handing my card to your husband. Permit me to lay it on his chair."
"I was glad to have your pretty boy. It was a welcome incident in a very dreary day. Good morning, sir."
Mr. Herriott did not return until the second call for luncheon sounded through the train. He took her hat from the brass hook and held it toward her.
"I dare say you are sufficiently weary to welcome luncheon."
"Thank you, but I want absolutely nothing. I hope you will go without me."
He went out, but not to the dining car.
An hour later, when he came back, she had crossed the aisle to a vacant chair, raised the window, and, with an arm on the broad sill, rested her head there. She did not notice his entrance, and resuming his seat he opened a magazine.
Above the line of brass lattice that held packages, hats, and umbrellas ran a panel of mirrors, and in the section over his head was reflected the face and figure directly opposite. For the next hour he held the magazine open, but his eyes never left the mirror. Twice she looked at her watch without raising her head, and from the tense, strained fixedness of her features he knew she was nerving herself for the ordeal at Woodbury; the final effort in her father's behalf, which he felt assured would prove futile. Conflicting emotions shook him, but nothing availed to abate the rage of his disappointment.
The train slowed at the entrance to a large town, and as the station platform filled with curious faces peering into the car windows, Eglah went back to her own seat.
A moment later the door was thrown open, and a boy wearing the uniform of the telegraph company shouted: