arresting picture, but only for a moment; by some affinity, some subtle
attraction, his eyes turned instantly to the second portrait--the girl
carrying the gun--and as if in answer to some secret sympathy, some
silent comprehension, the frown upon his brows relaxed and his lips
parted.

It was still the woman of the jewels and the splendid apparel, but it
was a woman infinitely free, infinitely unhampered. The plain,
serviceable clothes fitted the slight figure as though they had been
long worn and loved; the hair was closely coiled, so that the young face
looked out upon the world frank and unadorned as a boy's. Here, as in
the first picture, the eyes looked forth with a curious, proud
directness; but beneath the directness was a glint of humor, a flash of
daring absent in the other face; the mouth smiled, seeming to anticipate
life's secrets, the ungloved hand held the gun with a touch peculiarly
caressing, peculiarly firm.

The traveller looked, looked again, and then, with a deliberation odd in
so slight a circumstance, folded the paper, rose, and stepped to the
window of the carriage.

The night mist beat in, still raw and cold, but somewhere behind the
darkness was the stirring, the vague presage of the day to come. He
leaned out, fingers close about the paper, lips and nostrils breathing
in the suggestive, vaporous air. For a moment he stood, steadying
himself to the motion of the train, palpitating to his secret thoughts;
then, with a little theatricality all for his own edification, he opened
his fingers and, freeing the paper, watched it swirl away, hang for a
second like a moth against the lighted window, and vanish into the
night.