As he approached the vestibule, he caught her reflection in the mirror at the end of the sleeper.  She was looking after him, and she leaned forward a little with parted lips, as though she had started to call him back, but her eyes clouded in uncertainty; then suddenly, the sparkle rose.  It suffused her whole face.  She had met his glance in the glass.  And the porter was waiting.  She settled herself once more and devoted herself to the telegram.

The lines in Tisdale’s face deepened mellowly.  He believed that, now they were so near their journey’s end, she wanted to be sure of an opportunity to thank him some more.  “I am coming back,” he said inwardly, addressing the woman in the mirror, “but I must have a smoke to keep my pulse normal.”

But he did not return to the sleeper, for the reason that at Scenic Hot Springs the Seattle papers were brought aboard.  The copy of the Press he bought contained the account of the accident in Snoqualmie Pass.  The illustrations were unusually clear, and Daniels’ cuts were supplemented by another labelled:  “The Morganstein party leaving Vivian Court,” which also designated the group.

(Mrs. Feversham, wife of the special delegate from Alaska, in the tonneau.

Her sister, Miss Morganstein, on her right.

Mrs. Weatherbee seated in front.

Frederic Morganstein driving the car.)

And under the central picture Hollis read:  “Mrs. Weatherbee (Miss
Armitage?), as she drove the machine into the embankment.”

The paper rattled a little in his hands.  His face flamed, then settled gray and very still.  Except that his eyes moved, flashing from the photographs to the headlines, he might have been a man hewn of granite.  “One more reason why the Snoqualmie highway should be improved,” he read.  “Narrow escape of the Morganstein party.  Mrs. Weatherbee’s presence of mind.”  And, half-way down the page, “Mrs. Weatherbee modestly assumes an incognito when interviewed by a representative of the Press.”

But Tisdale did not look at the story.  He crushed the newspaper into the corner of his seat and turned his face to the window.  His cigar had gone out.  He laid it mechanically on the sill.  So, this was the woman who had wrecked David Weatherbee; who had cast her spell over level-headed Foster; and already, in the less than three days he had known her, had made a complete idiot of him.  Suppose Foster should hear about that drive through the mountains that had cost him over seven hundred dollars; suppose Foster should know about that episode in the basin on Weatherbee’s own ground.  A great revulsion came over him.

Presently he began to take up detail after detail of that journey.  Now he saw the real impulse that had led her to board the eastbound train in Snoqualmie Pass.  She had recognized him, conjectured he was on his way to find that tract of Weatherbee’s; and she had determined to go over the land with him, cajole him into putting the highest estimate possible on the property.  Even now, there in the sleeper, she was congratulating herself no doubt on the success of her scheme.