He turned to where the limp figure showed huddled in the depths of red upholstery.  There was a question and a threat in the measured words.

“Of course, tell him Miss Marteen’s address,” and in that answer there was a prayer.

“Then here.”  Gard wrote a few words on his card and gave it into the boy’s eager hand.  “Run up and see her.  She’s with her aunt.  I can bring her home any time now, however.  We’ve located the trouble and got the man under restraint.  Good-night.”

* * * * *

IX

Though the heat in the Pullman was intense the tall woman in the first seat was heavily veiled.  She had come out from the drawing room to allow more freedom to her maid, who was packing a dressing-case and rolling up steamer rugs.  Her fellow travelers eyed her with curiosity.  She was doubtless some great and exclusive personage, for she had not appeared in public, not even in the diner.  She sank into the vacant seat with an air of hopeless weariness, yet her restless hands never ceased their groping, her slim fingers slipped in and out, in and out of the loop of her long neck chain, or nervously twined one with another in endless intertouch.

The long journey north was over at last.  The weary days and nights of hurried travel.  Only a moment more and the familiar sights and sounds of the great city would greet her once again.  She was going home—­to what?  Mrs. Marteen did not dare to picture the future.  Pursued, as if by the Furies themselves, she had been driven, madly, blind with suffering, back to the scene of disaster—­to know—­to know—­the worst, perhaps—­but to know!

Day and night, night and day, her iron will had fought the fever that burned in her veins.  Silent, self-controlled, she had given no sign of her suffering and her terror, though her eyes were ringed with sleeplessness and her mouth had grown stiff with its effort to command.  The tension was torture.  Her heart strings were drawn to the snapping point; her mind was a bowstring never relaxed, till every fiber of her resistant body ached for relief.

At last they had arrived.  At last the hollow rumble of the train in the vast echoing station warned her of her journey’s end.  Instinctively she gave her orders, thrusting her baggage checks into the hands of her maid.

“I’m going on at once,” she said.  “Attend to everything.  Give me my little necessaire.  I don’t feel quite well, and I want to get home as quickly as possible.”

She hurried away before the servant could ask a question, and was directed to the open cab stand.  As she stepped in, she reeled.  Trepidation took hold upon her, but with enforced calm, she seated herself, and gave the address to the starter.  As the motor drew away from the great buildings, she threw back her veil for the first time, and opened a window.  The rush of cool air revived her somewhat, but her heart beat spasmodically, her blood seemed a thin, unliving stream.  Street after street slipped by like a panorama on a screen, familiar, yet unreal.  The world, her world, had changed in its essence, in its every manifestation.