“No, no, not at all. I must get to Paris at all costs. Ah! m’sieur, you will allow me to do as I ask, will you not? Do, I implore you!”
I made no reply; for, truth to tell, although I was not suspicious, I hesitated to allow the fair stranger to be my travelling companion. It was against my principle. Yet, reading disinclination in my silence, she continued—
“Ah! m’sieur, if you only knew in what deadly peril I am! By granting this favour to me you can——” and she broke off short. “Well,” she went on, “I may as well tell you the truth, m’sieur;” and in her eyes there was a strange look that I had never seen in those of any woman before,—“you can save my life.”
“Your life?” I echoed, but at that moment the stationmaster, standing at the buffet door, said—
“Pardon, m’sieur. I am just closing the station. The last train has departed.”
“Do take me!” implored the girl. “Do, m’sieur! Do!”
There was no time for further discussion, therefore I did as she requested, and a few moments later, with a dressing-case, which was all the baggage she had, she mounted into the car beside me, and we moved off northward to the capital.
I offered her the fur rug, and she wrapped it about her knees with the air of one used to motoring.