Not so Everard Dawn, who had started in surprise and perturbation at her first entrance.
“The fates have made us traveling companions—not for the first time, but I pray Heaven for the last!” was his grim thought.
He was sitting some seats ahead, and he resolutely turned his back to her, hoping not to disturb her peace by the disclosure of her identity, and thinking it hardly possible they should be fellow-travelers long. She was probably going to Richmond or Washington.
There were but few passengers, and they were very quiet as the train rushed on through the dull gray afternoon. Mrs. Flint, weary from the getting ready for the journey, dozed fitfully among her cushions, and Rachel Dane glued her face to the window-pane, and watched the flying landscape. As for Everard Dawn, he looked neither to the right nor left, but stared straight before him in a brown study. Mrs. Varian’s maid amused herself by studying the passengers, and discovered that some of them belonged to the town they had just left, though she did not suppose her haughty mistress would take any interest in that fact.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
“THE WEIGHT OF CRUEL YEARS PILED INTO ONE LONG AGONY.”
Mrs. Varian read on and on until her eyes grew weary, then closing them, she leaned back with a tired sigh, and fell to musing.
Perhaps the musings were not pleasant, for presently she sighed deeply again, and raising her head began to look around her in a listless way at the passengers.
She gave a violent start, and stared fixedly at the handsome head and broad shoulders a few seats ahead.
Could it be? Or was she dreaming? Surely those outlines were too familiar for her to be mistaken.
It was he! She saw him lean forward to answer the women in the next seat. The outline of his handsome profile was clear for a moment.