Besides, she could not be identified by means of a gray suit, a sailor hat, and a purple parasol if they were tucked away in the berth. At eleven o'clock he was pacing the little depot platform, waiting for the eleven-ten train, the last he was to inspect for the night. He had eaten a scanty meal at the restaurant nearby, and was still mad about it. The station agent slept soundly at his post, and all the rest of the town had gone to bed.
The train pulled in and out again, leaving him at the far end of the platform, mopping his harassed brow. He had visited the chair-cars and had seen no one answering the description. A half-dozen passengers huddled off and wandered away in the darkness.
"I'll bet my head she's in one of those sleepers," he groaned, as he watched the lights on the rear coach fade away into the night. "It's all off till to-morrow, that's settled. My only hope is that she really stopped in Albany. There's a train through here at three in the morning; but I'm not detective enough to unravel the mystery of any woman's berth. Now, where the deuce am I to sleep?"
As he looked about dismally, disconsolately, his hands deep in his pockets, his straw hat pulled low over his sleepy eyes, the station agent came up to him with a knowing grin on his face.
"'Scuse me, boss, but she's come," he said, winking.
"She? Who?"
"Her. The young lady. Sure! She's lookin' fer you over in the waitin'-room. You mus' 'a' missed her when she got off—thought she wasn't comin' up till to-morrer. Mus' 'a' changed her mind. That's a woming all over, ain't it?"
Rossiter felt himself turn hot and cold. His head began to whirl and his courage went fluttering away. Here was a queer complication. The quarry hunting for the sleuth, instead of the reverse. He fanned himself with his hat for one brief, uncertain moment, dazed beyond belief. Then he resolutely strode over to face the situation, trusting to luck to keep him from blundering his game into her hands. Just as he was about to put his foot upon the lamp-lit door-sill the solution struck him like a blow. She was expecting Havens to meet her!
There was but one woman in the room, and she was approaching the door with evident impatience as he entered. Both stopped short, she with a look of surprise, which changed to annoyance and then crept into an nervous, apologetic little smile; he with an unsuppressed ejaculation. She wore a gray skirt, a white waist, and a sailor hat, and she was surpassingly good to look at even in the trying light from the overhead lamp. Instinctively his eye swept over her. She carried on her arm the light gray jacket, and in one hand was the tightly rolled parasol of—he impertinently craned his neck to see—of purple! Mr. Rossiter was face to face with the woman he was to dog for a month, and he was flabbergasted. Even as he stopped, puzzled, before her, contemplating retreat, she spoke to him.
"Did that man send you to me?" she asked nervously, looking through the door beyond and then through a window at his right, quite puzzled, he could see.