CHAPTER III.

While the train was standing in the station at Rugby, and the majority of the male passengers were taking their last “night-caps” at the bar of the refreshment room, before composing themselves finally to sleep, a voice of somewhat uncertain fibre called to the guard as he passed the window of the carriage occupied by Richard Dalrymple.

“Guard, come here a minute. Can you tell me how that handkerchief got into this carriage?” and the speaker handed the dainty piece of cambric which he had found to the astonished guard.

Before the latter had time to frame a reply a shrill female voice from the next compartment called out, “Come here at once please, guard, quick!!”

The call was so urgent and the necessity of the caller apparently so desperate that, with a hasty “Excuse me, one moment, sir,” to Richard Dalrymple, the guard stepped to the door of the adjoining compartment.

“Come inside please, guard, I’ve crushed my finger in the window and can’t get it out.”

As soon as the guard had entered the carriage the lady who had called him--Miss Beattison’s companion--promptly placed herself in front of the door to prevent anyone from seeing inside, and then waved the guard toward her mistress.

“O, conductor, please tell me,” said the other with great eagerness, “what the gentleman in the next compartment found. I overheard part of your conversation but not all.”

“Well, miss, he found this handkerchief, and it seems to have startled him very considerably indeed.”

“O dear, dear, it is one of mine which I must have dropped in that place to-night. You will remember that you showed us into that compartment first of all, but I exchanged it for this one because it gave me a better view of the entrance gate, and enabled me to see who was going off by train.

“Now, guard, that gentleman next door is a friend of mine, but I would not for all the world he knew I was near him; he would certainly want to travel in the same carriage, and that would be quite a nuisance.

“Tell him the handkerchief must have been left there by one of a party of Northern visitors to London and must have escaped the cleaner’s notice.

“Be steady now and on no account let him suspect that I am in this carriage,” and a small golden coin changed hands.

When the guard returned to Dalrymple the latter questioned him as to what was wrong next door. “Lady jammed her hand in the window, sir.”

“Dear me, and did you raise the window and relieve her hand, poor thing.”

“Well, no, sir--come to reflect, hang me if I think I did “--this with evident shamefacedness.

“You are a funny fellow, guard. After being called to open a window and relieve a suffering damsel, you come away not only without taking off the pressure, but you forget all about it; get out of my way and I’ll attend to the suffering lady.”

“Hold on, sir--stop, I say, stop!” called out the guard resisting the other’s exit, “the lady’s hand is all right now, and besides I haven’t told you the worst, the lady is in a high fever and--and it looks like small-pox. I didn’t want to tell you at first,” he went on mendaciously, “but you have forced it out of me; please don’t say anything about it or I’ll get into trouble.”

“Great Heavens!” ejaculated the traveller; “what an awful calamity! I wish you would stand a little further off. Suppose,” he added under his breath, “I should carry the infection to Jeannie.”

Then he added aloud as the other was leaving, “You have not explained how that handkerchief came to be in this carriage.”

“Oh, that is a very simple matter, sir,” replied the other promptly with an “in for a penny in for a pound” air, “a party of ladies came up to London in this carriage on my last trip, and I suppose one of them dropped her handkerchief under the seat, by accident. The name on their trunks was Bertrand, and I heard one of the young ladies called Georgiana, and the initials being the same,” continued the guard giving full swing to his imagination, “I suppose the handkerchief belongs to her.”

“That sounds all right,” returned Dalrymple, giving a side glance at the piece of cambric as if he would have liked to have asked for it had he only known what excuse to make for his request.

Now as the lady in the adjoining carriage, anxious that our traveller should have a reminder of her, had with much and unwonted palpitation of heart, suggested to the conductor the propriety of returning the handkerchief to the finder, he had no particular difficulty in meeting the other’s unspoken request.

“I suppose you may as well place that handkerchief where you found it,” the guard remarked handing it to Dalrymple as he closed the door, “it is the usual way.”

“Well, I suppose so,” replied the other with affected indifference, receiving the precious article from his hands.

As the train sped on its way Dalrymple sat for a while with corrugated brow, then he suddenly muttered as he lit a last cigar before turning in for the night:

“That explanation might account for the initials, but how about the perfume? The coincidence is too striking. I don’t understand it, and I believe that small-pox scare next door is all a trumped-up affair. I wonder who the people are who curtain themselves so closely in there, and what they mean by fooling the guard so.”

He awoke once during the night to find himself with a photograph of his lady-love in one hand and the handkerchief in the other. This arrangement stung him to the heart, and he made as though he wanted to throw the handkerchief out of the window.

“But no!” he said to himself in time, “I might need it as a reminder that I must brace myself and drive all thoughts of Miss Beattison out of my mind.”

That this reasoning was faulty was more than proved by the rapid softening of the severe glance which he directed towards the fluffy piece of cambric, which, as if half afraid of some necromantic influence, he held gingerly between his finger and thumb.

“Guard,” he said, “I don’t believe that cock-and-bull story about small-pox in the next compartment, or that high old tale you told me about the lady crushing her hand--now who _are_ these people next door and what little game are they dragging you into?”

“I don’t know anything more about them than I have told you,” returned the conductor somewhat curtly, “and I’ve got too many daft people bothering me all the time without hunting up fresh ones.”

Saying this he raised his silver whistle to his lips and blew a loud blast, at the same time waving his right arm up and down toward the engineer like a crazy semaphore; all of which was the signal to go ahead.

Dalrymple retired to his seat with a rather chagrined smile.

“Slightly personal, that remark,” he said as he recomposed himself for sleep, “but I suppose he _is_ worried quite a good deal by queer people. This line seems to be haunted to-night.”