Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/343

 stalled myself in mine. My fellow traveller did not appear.

"I perceived her at the little bookstall on the opposite side of the line, looking over the volumes displayed. Although I could see nothing of her but her back, I easily recognised her by her pretty figure, her otter-skin mantle, and her grey hat. Her hair seemed to be a little less dark than I had imagined it to be; but that was the effect of distance, no doubt.

"All the passengers had resumed their seats, and the porters were banging-to the doors.

She'll be left behind! I thought. 'She's mad!' 'Madame! Madame!' I called to her out of the window.

"She was too far off, and did not hear me.

"The whistle sounded; the train was going to start. What was to be done? Prompt as a flash of lightning, an idea shot through my brain. She would be left there in the horrible cold without her luggage! Let her, poor woman, at least have her smaller belongings.

"I gathered up, in an armful, her three bags and her rugs, and threw the whole to a man in the uniform of the railway, who was on the line near the carriage.

For that lady over there,' I cried.

"The man in the uniform carried the articles in the direction of the lady at the bookstall. At the same moment the carriage door on the opposite side—the side next the platform—was opened, and my travelling companion, grumbled at by a station porter, hurried into the carriage, and the train started. Horror! I had mistaken the traveller. The lady at the bookstall was not the right one; the same mantle, same hat, same figure—but not she! It is perfectly absurd, how much women resemble one another—the back view of them. I had made a pretty mess of it!

"She had hardly entered the carriage before she uttered a shriek.

My parcels! Somebody has stolen my parcels!'

"And, for the first time, she turned her eyes on me, with a look—good heavens!—with a look never to be forgotten.

No, Madame,' I stammered, 'your parcels have not been stolen; they—they have been left behind at Tonnerre."

At Tonnerre! How?'

"I explained all to her. By Jove! my dear fellow, I can't describe the second look she darted at me; but, I assure you, I firmly believe I shall remember it even longer than the first.

I am distressed, Madame,' I further stammered, 'distressed exceedingly; but the motive was a good one: I thought that you were going to miss the train—that you would be cold—and—and I did not wish that you should be cold; in short—forgive me, and do not be uneasy in regard to your property, which is in safe hands—a man in uniform. At the next station you can telegraph—we will telegraph—and your things will be immediately sent on. Ah!—you shall have them, I vow, even though I have myself to go back to Tonnerre to fetch them.'

Enough, Monsieur! I know what I have to do.'

"Stormily she rearranged herself in her corner, tugging pettishly at her gloves.

"But, alas, poor little thing! she had counted without the cold—she no longer had her warm rugs and wraps about her. At the end of ten minutes she began to shiver. It was in vain that she tried to huddle herself up, to draw her otter-skin mantle closer to her form: she positively shivered with the cold.

"Madame,' I said, 'I beg of you, on my