Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 24).djvu/95

Rh blood rush back from her beating head to her heart. She grew pale, she grew cold, she grew paler still. For suddenly she understood the awful truth. The man was mad! She was shut up alone in a carriage with a madman!

And at the very instant that she realized the full horror of the situation the train began to move slowly and smoothly out of the station.

Terror kept her rigid as a figure of stone, and it was well for her that it was so. For though the madman's eye was unsteady, though it flickered the whole time, still he never removed it from her; he kept his hand always on the handle of the little pistol by his side.

She understood, intuitively, that were she to scream, were she to open the door, were she to try to pull the cord of communication with the guardwere she, in fact, to make any attempt to obtain help, he would fire at once. The desire for violence was clearly expressed in his glance.

And probably, even though she sat perfectly quiet, he would kill her all the same. And she looked at the glittering muzzle of the tiny weapon, and wondered how soon her death-blow would spring out from it. Heavens! It was too horrible, too impossible, that she, Lily Freeston, so young and so happy, with so many people who were fond of her, with Aunt Mary thinking about her probably at that very moment, with her friend Maggie Parker expecting her at Ipswich, with so many pretty frocks in her trunk to be worn during her visit, that she should find herself in imminent peril of her life, shut up alone in a railway carriage with a madman.

It was like some horrible nightmare, and yet it was worse than any nightmare she had ever suffered from, for it was actual fact, it was actually true.

What could she do?

The advertisements on the walls of the station began to slide past her, those advertisements of soap, of blacking, of beer, which she knew so well, which she had read hundreds of times in hundreds of idle, empty moments, and amidst all the confused, troubled, agonized thoughts which seemed to struggle and shout together in her brain came the ridiculous little regret that this was the last time she would ever read these familiar advertisements, ever be bored by their monotonous reiterations. For in another minute she would be carried away from all aid, from all human proximity, out into the open country, alone with this madman, and whatever then happened her cries would be lost in the noise of the rushing train, which would not again stop until it reached Ipswich.

Her fingers trembled on the pencil which she still held poised over her unfinished letter, and suddenly an inspiration came to hera Heaven-sent inspiration which thrilled her with a last faint hope of help, which comforted her with the idea of, at least, making her desperate circumstances known to some fellow-being.

She carried this idea out with a coolness and courage which were Heaven-sent too.

All this while, and it appears to be a certain while in the reading, although in point of time it passed in a very few seconds, she had her eyes raised to the madman's, who watched her interrogatively, expecting an answer to his information. Now she gave one.

"Very well," she said, gently, and she was astonished to detect no alteration in her voice, it sounded just as usual. "You shall go on smoking and I will go on with my letter."

Now the writing-pad consisted of detachable sheets, which could be turned back as each page was finished and all held together, or any separate page could be easily pulled out. Lily turned a page now, and wrote on the next one: "Pray help me, I am so frightened" (an unexpected termination this to the gay courage of her unfinished sentence to her aunt), and then added another couple of words, any words, nonsense words, and promptly scratched them through, as if she had made a mistake. Immediately, with a well-assumed little frown of vexation, she tore out the page and crumpled it up in her hand.

Now she rose with an air of indifference and let her glance fall out of the window. There were the long boards of the platform slipping by her, running away to converge in a single point in the distance; there was a porterthe very porter to whom she had given the shillingrolling and rattling milk-cans from one part of the station to the other; there stood the young man in grey, still waiting, and talking now with the station-master. Everything was calm, placid, ordinary; everyone was absolutely indifferent to her peril. And yet she was being carried away from all security, from all calmness, to a horrible uncertainty, most likely to a violent death.

The young man in grey happened to raise