bath-robe, with an unkempt thatch of hair, walking up to her and
assuring her that he would protect her would probably put her into
hysterics. I had done that once before, when burglars had tried to
break into the house, and had startled the parlor maid into bed for
a week. So I tried to assure myself that I had imagined the lady's
distress--or caused it, perhaps--and to dismiss her from my mind.
Perhaps she was merely anxious about the unpleasant gentleman of the
restaurant. I thought smugly that I could have told her all about
him: that he was sleeping the sleep of the just and the intoxicated
in a berth that ought, by all that was fair and right, to have been
mine, and that if I were tied to a man who snored like that I should
have him anesthetized and his soft palate put where it would never
again flap like a loose sail in the wind.

We passed Harrisburg as I stood there. It was starlight, and the
great crests of the Alleghanies had given way to low hills. At
intervals we passed smudges of gray white, no doubt in daytime
comfortable farms, which McKnight says is a good way of putting it,
the farms being a lot more comfortable than the people on them.

I was growing drowsy: the woman with the bronze hair and the
horrified face was fading in retrospect. It was colder, too, and
I turned with a shiver to go in. As I did so a bit of paper
fluttered into the air and settled on my sleeve, like a butterfly
on a gorgeous red and yellow blossom. I picked it up curiously
and glanced at it. It was part of a telegram that had been torn
into bits.

There were only parts of four words on the scrap, but it left me
puzzled and thoughtful. It read, "-ower ten, car seve-."