under it, and ultimately sinking into a state of childish imbecility, he ended his days in a private asylum. The little property left was then invested so as to secure a small annuity to his widow, and upon this the two cousins had been living in Eisenach until a situation could be obtained for the younger one.
It was a long time after parting from Madame Steindorf, as her only friend on that side of the Channel, before Helen Boyne could manage to divert her thoughts by reading; for directly she tried to do so the tears which she fancied she had stayed would flood her eyes once more, and fall in heavy drops, like summer rain upon the leaves. Nor did she know whether they went through tunnels or crossed rivers; all outward things were an utter blank to her, for she heard nothing but the murmurings of her own heart, and saw nothing but her own sad fate before her.
She was hardly conscious even that the train had stopped at the little village of Gerstungen on the banks of the Werra, and was suddenly aroused from her dream by a strange gentleman jumping into the carriage in which she was seated, just as the train was in the act of starting.
The entrance was so abrupt and so utterly unforeseen that the girl gave a faint scream as she saw the man standing before her. Besides, the appearance of the gentleman was not of the most prepossessing kind. He was muffled to the nose in a comforter, and wore a fur-cap drawn low over the forehead, and with the lappets covering the ears, so that there was hardly any more of the face to be seen than if the man’s head had been seen through a vizor.
“Thank heaven!” gasped out the man, “I caught the train.” And the next minute he was jolted back into the seat with the motion of the carriages. Then having flung his carpet-bag on to the vacant cushion next to him he began to unwind the comforter from his neck and to remove the fur-covering from his head, so that he might wipe the perspiration from his brow. After which he commenced stamping violently to divest his boots of the heavy clots of snow that still clung to the soles of them. “I thought I should have missed it after all,” he said quickly, and half to himself, and then turning sharply round to the lady, he added in the same disjointed manner, “You are not a German, are you?”
The brusqueness of the question so startled the affrighted girl that she knew not whether to answer the man or not. On second thoughts, however, she fancied it would be better to be civil to the person, lest he should take offence and be rude to her in return: so, without turning her head, she replied:
“No, sir; I am English.”
“Soh!” cried the other, as he mused over the information. The next minute he began to unlock his carpet-bag, and after rummaging over the contents, ultimately drew forth a small hand mirror, which he held up in front of his face while he examined his beard and the long lank locks that hung like a lion’s mane about his head.
While he was so engaged Helen Boyne could not help casting a furtive glance at her companion, and, as she did so, she felt assured she had seen him somewhere before;—that horrible grisly red beard, and those straight yellow locks, reaching to his shoulders and tucked behind the large projecting ears, were too deeply impressed in her mind to forget them, and then she fell to wondering where it was she could have met him; it could not have been at the “Klemda,” for he seemed to be hardly well-bred enough to be admitted there; and while she was thus musing she noticed that the man was about to draw a pair of scissors from the dressing-case he had removed from the bag, but the sudden appearance of the guard at the window of the carriage made him thrust them hurriedly back again.
“Your ticket, if you please,” said the man. “Where are you going to?” he inquired, as he took the bit of pasteboard in order to make the customary hole through it.
“You can see if you can read,” snappishly answered the new comer. And as he took the ticket back from the official, he held it in front of his face, as he cried, “Can’t you see Gerstungen to Cassel; it’s printed large enough. I go from there to Frankfurt this afternoon, can’t I?”
“Yes,” was the laconic reply.
The manner of the stranger was so peculiar, and there was such a restlessness about his eyes that the guard could not help saying before pulling the window up again, “Is this gentleman annoying you, madame?”
Helen Boyne could not answer the question in the affirmative. It is true she objected to the man’s company; then she was too polite-minded a girl to ask for his removal from the carriage on that account, for she felt it would be casting a stigma upon him that he in no way deserved. So she stammered out:
“Oh no, thank you, not at all.”
The words were no sooner uttered than the window was closed again, and the guard was off walking along the narrow ledge outside the carriages to collect the tickets from the new comers while the train was in motion.
“Soh, now we are all right till we get to Cassel,” cried the stranger, chafing his palms together, but whether for the sake of warmth or exultation it was difficult to say.
The words, “from Gerstungen to Cassel,” rang like the drone of a cathedral bell for many a minute in the mind of the young girl. That man was to be her companion alone in the carriage for many an hour of her long journey. She would get out at Cassel and ask the guard to place her in another carriage. It was curious why he should have chosen to travel first-class, for it was evident by his manner and appearance that he was ill-able to afford the extra expense. Then she thought of what she had heard the day before at the hotel in Eisenach, that none but English people and mad folk ever resorted to those carriages; and as the recollection flashed through her mind she shuddered with alarm as she asked herself whether her companion could possibly be a person of deranged mind.
The rapid disjointed utterances he gave vent to, the incoherence of his actions, his restlessness and irritability, all tended to convince her that she was locked in that carriage alone with a lunatic.