In the confusion of getting settled in her section, and of expressing her gratitude to Tom, Miss Lucinda forgot for the time the deadly weight of guilt that rested upon her.  It was not until the conductor called for her ticket that her heart grew cold, and a look of consternation swept over her face.  It seemed to her that he eyed the pass suspiciously and when he did not return it a terror seized her.  She knew he was coming back to ask her name, and what was her name?  Mrs. Dora Luring, or Mrs. Dura Loring, or Mrs. Lura Doring?

In despair she fled to the dressing room and stood there concealed by the curtains.  In a few moments the conductor passed, and she peeped at his retreating figure.  He stopped in the narrow passage by the window and studied her pass, then he compared it with a telegram which he held in his hand.  Just then the porter joined him, and she flattened herself against the wall and held her breath.

“It’s the same name,” she heard the conductor say in an undertone.  “I’ll wire back to headquarters at the next stop.”

If ever retribution followed an erring soul, it followed Miss Lucinda on that trip.  No one spoke to her, and nothing happened, but she sat in terrified suspense, looking neither to right nor left, her heart beating frantically at every approach, and the whirring wheels repeating the questioning refrain, “Dora Luring?  Dura Loring?  Lura Doring?”

In New York, Floss met her as she stepped off the train, fairly enveloping her in her enthusiasm.

“Here you are, you old darling!  I have been having a fit a minute for fear you wouldn’t come.  This is my Cousin May.  She is going to stay with us the whole week.  New York is simply heavenly, Miss Lucy.  We have made four engagements already.  Matinee this afternoon, a dinner to-night—­What’s the matter?  Did you leave anything on the train?”

“No, no,” stammered Miss Lucinda, still casting furtive glances backward at the conductor.  “Was he talking to a policeman?” she asked suspiciously.

“Who?”

“The conductor.”

The girls laughed.

“I don’t wonder you were scared,” said Floss; “a policeman always does remind me of Miss Joe Hill.”

They called a cab and, to Miss Lucinda’s vast relief, were soon rolling away from the scene of danger.

* * * * *

It needed only one glance into a handsome suite of an up-town hotel one week later to prove the rapid moral deterioration of the prodigal.

Arrayed in a shell-pink kimono, she was having her nails manicured.  Her gaily figured garment was sufficient in itself to give her an unusual appearance; but there was a more startling reason.

Miss Lucinda’s hair, hitherto a pale drab smoothly drawn into a braided coil at the back, had undergone a startling metamorphosis.  It was Floss’s suggestion that Miss Lucinda wash it in “Golden Glow,” a preparation guaranteed to restore luster and beauty to faded locks.  Miss Lucinda had been over-zealous, and the result was that of copper in sunshine.