"How do you know that?" said old Bryan.
"I can see it; I've been watching her," said Mrs. Goole. "You see that you have the forward section; I have the rear one. She won't pass me in the night, whatever she does at your end."
"Do you mean to sit up all night?" said poor Bryan.
"Of course I do, fool!" said his tender sister, "and that you shall sit up all night, too. If you don't, there'll be no wedding to-morrow."
"Well," said Bryan, as his sister left him.
He thought it over with a cigar on the front platform, and decided that his sister was right. So he worked his way back to her section, and found her there, sitting on the edge of the berth, as grim as a sentinel at Pompeii.
"I'll do it," said he.
"You'd better," said she.
And so all night he sat on the edge of his berth and tried to read, and then took another cigar on the platform, and then back and forth, till his cigars were gone; but not a wink of sleep passed his eyes that night.
As for Mrs. Goole, who shall say what passed in her vigils? Certain she was that on that night no one passed her but the two conductors and one brakeman. She was once startled at Chimborazo as a new black face appeared; but it was explained that there was a change of porters, and whether Mungo or John it mattered little to her.