"He won't succeed—but I'd rather he hadn't seen me in the train."
"Or Madame."
Jim Horton made no reply and was at once enwrapped in his thoughts, which as Piquette could see, excluded her. And after a glance at his face, she too was silent. The train, stopping here and there, rushed on through the darkness, for hours it seemed to Piquette, and her companion still sat, staring at the blank wall before him, absorbed in his problem. He seemed to have forgotten her—and at last she could bear the silence no longer.
"Mon pauvre Jeem, you love 'er so much as dat?" she asked.
He started at the sound of her voice and then turned and laid his hand over hers.
"I'm a fool, Piquette," he muttered.
"Who s'all say?" She shrugged. Then she turned her palm up and clasped his. "I am ver' sorry, mon ami."
The touch of her hand soothed him. In spite of the danger that she now ran, only half suggested by what she had said, she could still find words to comfort him. Selfish brute that he was, not to think of her!
"Piquette! I have gotten you into trouble."
"No. I got myself into it, mon Jeem."