"Yes!" she said. "Yes, I am! I'm horribly afraid of that overcoat! I—I'd like to throw it from the train window, but I—I can't do that, of course! It would be stealing——"
Her voice broke again with nervous tears:
"I d-don't want the coat! And I can't throw it away! And if it's shipped to him from the South he may come down here and investigate. He's in New York now. That's why I am on my way South! I—I want him to remain in New York until—until all—d-danger is over. And by the first of April it will be over. And then I'll come North—and bring him his coat——"[216]
The bewildered darkey stared at her and at the coat which she had unconsciously clutched to her breast.
"Do you think," she said, "that M-Mr. Green will need the coat this winter? Do you suppose anything would happen to him if he doesn't have it for a while—pneumonia or anything? Oh!" she exclaimed in a quivering voice, "I wish he and his overcoat were at the South Pole!"
Green withdrew his head and pressed both palms to his temples. Could he trust his ears? Was he going mad? Holding his dizzy head in both hands he heard the girl say that she herself would attend to shipping the coat; heard the perplexed darkey take his leave and go; heard her stateroom door close.
Seated in his stateroom he gazed vacantly at the couch opposite, so completely bewildered with his first over-dose of Romance that his brain seemed to spin like a frantic squirrel in a wheel, and his thoughts knocked and jumbled against each other until it truly seemed to him that all his senses were fizzling out like wet firecrackers.
What on earth had he ever done to inspire such horror in the mind of this young girl?
What terrible injury had he committed against her or hers that the very sound of his name terrified[217] her—the mere sight of his overcoat left her almost hysterical?
Helplessly, half stupefied, he cast about in his wrecked mind to discover any memory or record of any injury done to anybody during his particularly blameless career on earth.