The hurry of his departure over, he sat in the Pullman and persuaded himself that he was undecided as to what he should do and was giving a judicial consideration to the advisability of marrying a woman sister-in-law to a negro: but the while he thought he was debating the matter Kale Lineberger was whisking the New York and New Orleans Limited along the curves of the Big Thicketty and across the bridges of the Broad and the Catawba—speeding him on toward the girl—as fast as an expert handling of throttle, lever and "air" could turn the driving-wheels of the mammoth "1231" and keep her feet on the rails....
As Rutledge in the cool of Sunday morning stepped from the rear sleeper, Jim McQueen climbed down from the engine, oil-can in hand.
"Well," said Jim, taking a look at his watch, "here's one Southern train under a Washington shed on time,—if I do say it, as shouldn't." ... Rutledge had not lost ten seconds in his coming to Elise.
Buying a copy of The Mail from a boy, he took a cab to his lodgings. From habit he looked first at the editorials. Turning then to the first page he saw under a modest headline an accurate account of the yesterday's episode at Spartanburg, and his statement that he was not engaged to Miss Phillips. He read it over a second time. Then, as if by the recurrence of a lapsed instinct, unthinkingly he turned the leaves and was reading an item on the "society page."
"Virginia Springs, Va.—Her physician states that Mrs. Hayne Phillips is recovering very slowly from the effects of the terrible shock caused by Mr. Phillips' death, and will hardly be strong enough to be removed to her home in Cleveland before the first of October."
Rutledge had been buried in South Carolina politics for ten weeks and in that time had not seen the Virginia Springs date-line sometime so familiar to him. Of course, he thought, Elise is with her mother! and from the dating-stamp on that letter he had carelessly assumed she was in Washington. He turned back a page and glanced hurriedly at a railroad time-card, then at his watch.
"Here," he called sharply to the cabby, who jerked up his horse, "you've but three minutes to get me back to the station—get a move on!" ... Out of the cab through the waiting-room and at the gate he rushed. The placid keeper barred the way.
"C. & O. west!" snapped Rutledge.
"Gone." The gateman seemed to be thinking of something else.
"How long since?"