Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 24).djvu/96

86 his eyes to hers, although he was a long way from her, far down the moving platform.

With apparent carelessness she threw the little ball of paper out and sat down again to write. But she had thrown it with a definite aim, she had seen it roll to the feet of the two men, she had seen the young man pick it up. He was smoothing it out in his fingers when the station passed out of sight.

"SHE HAD SEEN THE YOUNG MAN PICK IT UP."

So far her scheme had worked successfully. But what result would it have? Could it have any result? What would the young man do? What would the station-master do? Was it possible for them to do anything at all? They would probably think it some silly girl's joke.

Yet even if they believed her to be in need of help, what could they do?

And she sat pretending to continue her letter, while asking herself with anguish whether there were really any means of overtaking an express train, of stopping her? Perhaps they would telegraph on to the next station and have her stopped by signal, but perhaps the next station was ever so far off, and before they reached it she might be already dead.

An unconquerable fascination made her look up, to see the man in the corner watching her with a cruel malignancy while his fingers caressed the handle of the revolver; and she bent again over her writing-pad, on which she traced mechanically nonsense words, while she said to herself: "Now he will fire. Before I get to the end of the next line he will fire. How unhappy poor auntie will be when she hears the news! I suppose she will read of it in to-morrow's paper." And the girl felt her eyes fill with tears as she imagined her Aunt Mary's grief.

A shadow fell across the paper. The window was suddenly darkened. Someone was standing outside the carriage on the footboard looking in over the door.

It was the young man in grey, and when Lily recognised his fair, strong, and handsome English face, so much passionate relief and gratitude welled up into her wet blue eyes that he instantly saw he had done right in obeying the impulse which told him to spring upon the flying train. He had thrust Lily's paper into the hands of the station-master, had run along the platform, and leaped upon the footboard of one of the rear carriages as it whirled past him. The rest had been a mere matter of agility and nerve. Now, another glance into the carriage revealed to him the state of the case.

He turned the handle, stepped up, and sat down opposite the young girl.

"Well, I very nearly missed the train this