The Uttermost Farthing

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

He turned that which had been Margaret Pargeter so that her face would be completely hidden from anyone opening the door and looking into the carriage.

Yet, even as he was doing this, Vanderlyn kept a sharp watch and ward over his own nerves. His had now become the mental attitude of a man who desires to save the living woman whom he loves from some great physical danger. Blessing his own foresight in providing the large rug which he had folded about her so tenderly an hour ago, he pulled up a fold of it till it covered, and completely concealed, her head. Should a traveller now enter the carriage he would see nothing but a woman apparently plunged in deep slumber.

Again Vanderlyn glanced, with far more scrutinising eyes than he had done when first entering the train, through the two glazed apertures which commanded a view of the next carriage; it was, as he knew well, empty.

He turned once more the silk shade over the lamp, jammed his hat down over his eyes, set his lips together, and, averting his eyes from what he was leaving, opened the railway carriage door....

The train was slowing down; a few hundred yards ahead lay the station. Vanderlyn stepped to one side of the footboard, and waited till the door through which he had just passed swung to; then he turned the handle, securing it firmly.

With soft, swift steps, he walked past the window of the now darkened carriage and slipped into the next empty, brightly-lighted compartment. There came over him a strong temptation to look through the little apertures giving into the darkened carriage he had just left, but it was a temptation which he resisted. Instead, he leant out of the window, as does a traveller who is nearing his destination.

Soon there floated up to him the shouting of "Dorgival! Cinq minutes d'arrêt!" and when the train at last stopped, there arose the joyous chatter which attends every arrival in a French station.

Vanderlyn waited for a few moments; then he stepped down from the carriage, and began walking quietly down the platform. With intense relief he remembered that the guard of the train whom he had feed so well, and who must have noticed him with Peggy, had been left behind in Paris.

Having passed the end compartment and guard's van he stood for awhile staring down at the permanent way, counting the rails which gleamed in the half darkness. He measured with his eyes the distance which separated the platform on which he was standing from that whence the next train back to Paris must start.

There was very little risk either of accident or detection, but it was his duty to minimise whatever risk there was. He dropped down gently onto the permanent way, and stood for a moment in the deep shadow cast by the rear of the train he had just left; then, cautiously advancing, he looked both up and down the line, and made his way to the other side.