Very quietly he rose and climbed over the low partition which separated his compartment from that in which the woman was.  She was seated in the corner, her head leaning back, so that the feeble light from the lamp fell on it, and her eyes were closed.  She was asleep.

He slid himself along the seat till he was opposite to her, then paused to look at the fierce wicked face on which drink and paint and years of evil-thinking and living had left their marks, and looking shuddered.  There was his bad genius, there was the creature who had driven him from evil to evil and finally destroyed him.  Had it not been for her he might have been a good and respected man, and not what he was now, a fraudulent ruined outcast.  All his life seemed to flash before his inner eye in those few seconds of contemplation, all the long weary years of struggle, crime, and deceit.  And this was the end of it, and there was the cause of it.  Well, she should not escape him; he would be revenged upon her at last.  There was nothing but death before him, she should die too.

He set his teeth, drew the loaded pistol from his pocket, cocked it and lifted it to her breast.

What was the matter with the thing?  He had never known the pull of a pistol to be so heavy before.

No, it was not that.  He could not do it.  He could not shoot a sleeping woman, devil though she was; he could not kill her in her sleep.  His nature rose up against it.

He placed the pistol on his knee, and as he did so she opened her eyes.  He saw the look of wonder gather in them and grow to a stare of agonised terror.  Her face became rigid like a dead person’s and her lips opened to scream, but no cry came.  She could only point to the pistol.

“Make a sound and you are dead,” he said fiercely.  “Not that it matters though,” he added, as he remembered that the scream must be loud which could be heard in that raging gale.

“What are you going to do?” she gasped at last.  “What are you going to do with that pistol?  And where do you come from?”

“I come out of the night,” he answered, raising the weapon, “out of the night into which you are going.”

“You are not going to kill me?” she moaned, turning up her ghastly face.  “I can’t die.  I’m afraid to die.  It will hurt, and I’ve been wicked.  Oh, you are not going to kill me, are you?”

“Yes, I am going to kill you,” he answered.  “I told you months ago that I would kill you if you molested me.  You have ruined me now, there is nothing but death left for me, and you shall die too, you fiend.”

“Oh no! no! no! anything but that.  I was drunk when I did it; that man brought me there, and they had taken all my things, and I was starving,” and she glanced wildly round the empty carriage to see if help could be found, but there was none.  She was alone with her fate.

She slipped down upon the floor of the carriage and clasped his knees.  Writhing in her terror upon the ground, in hoarse accents she prayed for mercy.