carriage that morning, and that dull black “Gibus” hat that he wore now, how different it made him look from when he wore the soft Garibaldi hat but a few minutes before.
Nor was Helen’s astonishment in any way diminished when the fellow raised the “Gibus” from his head, and making her a polite bow, said, in French, with an excellent accent, “Est-ce-que Mademoiselle, me connait à present?” and then, with a shrug of the shoulders, and indulging in the mincing gestures of a Frenchman, he went on to inform her that she was in future to regard him as a true Parisian, and as a proof of his having been naturalised, he begged to present her with his passport, which he bade her read and see whether the description agreed with the kind of person before her. But before placing the document in her hands he took the precaution to double back the part of the side where the personal traits were noted down, so that she might peruse only that part, and still be ignorant of the name and character in which he was about to travel.
Sure enough it was a veritable French pass, and as the girl read half aloud, “black curly hair, long black whiskers and moustachios, low forehead, broad nose, defective teeth, &c., she glanced in wonder from the written particulars to the real characteristics of the person before her, marvelling not alone at how closely they tallied, but also as to how he could have become possessed of such a document.
“Would Mademoiselle believe I was of French extraction if she had never seen me before?” asked the man, with a true French politeness, for his manner was now as much changed as his personal appearance.
“A girl who has never been in France can be easily deceived,” was the formal reply.
“But I ought to be able to blind more sharp-sighted folk than you, in such a disguise, since my mother was French, and all my cousins on her side are French too,” he continued, half talking to himself, and then, as he stood up, he divested himself of a large fur cloak, in which he had entered the carriage at Cassel, and revealed a long black Capuchin over-coat, with a tasseled hood hanging down the back, such as Frenchmen are known to delight in, and which, on his first entry into the carriage at Gerstungen, he had kept carefully concealed under the plaid shawl that he wore over his shoulders, after the fashion of the university folk of Germany.
“Vun ozer favor, Meess, you shall make, and zen I am done,” he now said, in broken English, affecting to speak the language as a Frenchman.
“Another?” trembled out the girl, as the terrible recollection of the ordeal she had passed through on the last occasion darted across her mind.
“Zees fur redingote! You shall be so good as to give him to zee conducteur of zee train, when he is arrived at Harburg, and you shall say to him that a shentleman did take him avay viz him by error from zee vaiting saloon at Cassel. Have you zee goodness to say so,” he jabbered on, still affecting the ways of a Frenchman.
The girl nodded assent, for she was still too prostrate from fright to speak overmuch now that her astonishment was at an end.
Then, resuming his former air, the man added, in his native language, and with the same terrible menace in his looks, “Remember! One word of what has passed in this carriage before a month has elapsed, and you shall feel the vengeance of a man driven to desperation by his crimes. Swear secresy again,” he raved on, “ere I leave you, for my time is just up. Swear it with your right hand on your bosom, as is the custom with women in Germany. Thus, girl,” and with the words he forced her palm rudely on her breast.
“I do, I do,” murmured Helen Boyne, ready to comply with any request to be quit of the fellow.
The next minute the train was entering the Hannover station, where the stranger sprang once more from the carriage, and was soon lost in the crowd.
As usual, the guard made his appearance in a few minutes, to tell the young lady that the train stops for a considerable time at this station, and immediately Helen saw the welcome form of the official she said, in a faint voice, “I have a ticket for Harburg, can I stay here the night, for indeed I am too ill to go on?”
“If the Fraulein will walk with me to the office, I will arrange it for her,” replied the guard.
“Indeed I cannot; I am too weak and ill. Oh, pray take me to some hotel,” she cried, “and do not let me travel here alone any longer,” and the poor thing trembled from head to foot as though she had been seized with a tertian ague.
“Yonder is the Flaus-knecht, from the Hotel de Hannovre,” said the official; “I will go and bid him get a drosky to carry the Fraulein, for we are some little distance from the town here.”
And by the time the young lady was brought to the door of the hotel she was so faint that she had to be lifted from the vehicle and carried straight to her room, and she had only the strength to dictate the address of her cousin in Eisenach, and to beg that the mistress of the hotel would write a letter to her by that night’s post, and entreat her to come to her there immediately, as she felt as if she would never rise from her bed again.
Nor was it until two days had passed that Madame Steindorf was able to join the girl, and then she learnt from the medical gentleman who had been called in that the young lady was suffering from some violent shock to her system, but how it had been caused it was impossible for him to learn from her. For the first night he had been afraid she would sink into a state of collapse, so utterly prostrate was the entire constitution. She must have suffered, in his opinion, some terrible fright; had there been an accident on the line that would have accounted for her symptoms, for he had seen such cases even when not the least bodily injury had been sustained. But though the guard of the train had been questioned, he could give no account of the girl having been frightened in any way; all he knew was that she had travelled with a gentleman in a