And I threw back my heavy mourning veil and looked my captor full in the face.
“Ain’t you? It’s widow’s weeds this time!”
These words were spoken sarcastically by a man in civilian dress who was with the sergeant—a detective, I suppose.
“I am Mrs. Milicent Duncan Norman, of Baltimore,” I said firmly. “You can telegraph to No. — Charles Street and see. You will please remove your hand,” I continued. “If necessary I will go with you, but I am not the person you wish to arrest. You are making a mistake.”
I turned my face full to the light, and stood, calm and composed, though my knees were trembling under me, and I felt as if I should faint. I saw Bobby at home waiting for me!
“I must stay over if you insist,” I repeated, “but I hope you will permit me to convince you of your mistake. It would be extremely inconvenient to me to be detained here. I left Baltimore this morning, and my little boy has been without me all day. He will cry himself sick if I don’t get home to-night.”
In spite of all I could do my lips quivered.
“I am sorry, madam,” said my sergeant, more respectfully than he had hitherto spoken, “but you will have to come with me. If it is as you say, you can telegraph and satisfy the authorities very quickly.”
My arrest had attracted some attention. I saw that people in the car were gathering around me, and I saw curiosity in some faces, sympathy in some, but among all those faces none that I knew. This was my first visit to Washington, and there was not a soul to identify me. There was nothing to do but to go and telegraph—if they would let me. I would have to miss my train. Bobby was watching from the window for me this very minute—Bobby would cry all night. I told the sergeant that I would go, and tried to follow him, and then everything grew dark around me, my head whirled, and I dropped across the seat nearest me.
I could not have been unconscious more than a second. The kind gentleman over whose seat I had fallen had caught me, and was slapping my face with a wet handkerchief, and assuring the sergeant that he knew by my face that I was perfectly harmless and ought not to be arrested, that he would bet anything on it, when a new passenger hurriedly entered the car and brushed squarely up against us.