"Crowd there too sleepy to get it to me, I suppose," he said, puzzled. "What was in it?" But without waiting for an answer, he went on: "I came to tell you about my telegram," and with that he passed it over to her. "Business before pleasure," he remarked tritely, and yet in a manner that he knew she would understand. "I can't go on the Marchioness, you see."
"The Marchioness," she responded, "is not going after all. That's why I wired you. But I'm glad you came, because, somehow, I wanted you to know—before it appeared in the papers——" She paused, and then added, with much feeling: "The Grand Jury has indicted my father—late yesterday afternoon. As yet no one knows it; but everybody will know it by nine o'clock this morning. It may be in the papers now, though they tried to keep it out. It's a terrible thing—a thing like that! I can't see how, or why, they indicted him! Can you?"
Beekman looked his sympathy. Presently he asked:
"Do you mind my asking just what they charge him with?"
VII
The Empire State Express had not travelled many miles when Eliot Beekman's attention was directed to a strange-looking man who sat across the aisle, facing him. From time to time the man's face flushed and gave little nervous starts and twitches, and, every now and then, he mumbled to himself. At first Beekman figured out that the man was recovering from an unaccustomed debauch; but afterwards he changed his mind: he decided that he was crazy.
"Glad to get away from New York," confided the stranger, breaking in on Beekman's meditations, and tapping him on the knee. "The farther away I get the better I like it."
Beekman somewhat resented this interference with his comfortable somnolence, but he straightened up and smiled and answered: