The passengers wakeful, uncomfortable, restless in the close air of the crowded car could never have guessed that the gray-haired, handsome man, who slept so peacefully, was a father in pursuit of an eloping daughter.
And in another train a hundred miles beyond, rushing faster and faster toward the rising dawn, sat Ellen and Clarence Murdock. They too rode in the common car, for the train was crowded. They sat bolt upright and rather far apart for lovers. From time to time Clarence reached out and touched her hand, gently, almost with deprecation, and to this she submitted quietly, as if she were unconscious of the humble gesture toward affection. It is true that they were both a little frightened; what had happened had happened so quickly. Even Clarence could not have explained it. To Ellen, though she came in the end to understand it all, it must have been a great mystery.
The romance—what little of it there had been—was all vanished now, gone cold before the glare of the flaring lights, beneath the staring, bleary eyes of their fellow passengers. Somehow everything had turned cold and stuffy, touched by the taste of soot and the accumulated dust of half a continent. The train rocked and swayed over the glittering rails, and presently Clarence, who had been frowning for a long time over something, said, "D'you think they'll ever send on my hand bags?"
Ellen laughed and regarded him suddenly with a curious glance of startled affection. For a moment one might have taken them for a mother and child . . . a mother who saw that her child must be protected and pitied a little.
"I wouldn't worry over that," she answered. "What difference does it make now?"
"And May . . ." began Clarence once more.
"It's done now," said Ellen gravely. "Besides in a little while she'll forget everything and marry some one else. Any man will suit May. It's only a man she wants, not the man."
But Clarence was not comforted; there was his conscience to
