He looked around, his eyes met Harry's--perhaps he had been observing
him in the night--and he smiled. It was a rare, illuminating smile that
made him wonderfully attractive, and Harry smiled back. He did not know
it, but he was growing lonely, with the loneliness of youth, and he
wanted a friend.

"You are stopping in Nashville?" said the man with the friendliness of
the time.

"For a day only. I am then going further south."

Harry had answered without hesitation. He did not believe it possible
that this man could be planning anything against him or his errand.
The tall stranger looked upon him with approval.

"I noticed you in the train last night when you slept," he said,
speaking in the soft, musical accents of the seaboard South. "Your
sleep was very deep, almost like collapse. You showed that you had
been through great physical and mental strain, and even before you
fell asleep your anxious look indicated that you rode on an errand
of importance."

Harry gazed at him in surprise, mingled with a little alarm. The
strange man laughed musically and with satisfaction.

"I am neither a detective nor a conspirator," he said. "These are times
when men travel upon anxious journeys. I go upon one myself, but since
we are in Tennessee, well south of the Mason and Dixon line, I make no
secret of it. I am Leonidas Talbot, of South Carolina, until a week ago
a colonel in the American army, but now bound for my home in Charleston.