“At last, at last I have you away from all those people and all to myself!” exulted Fabian, as he seated his wife in the corner of the car, and turned the opposite seat that they might have no near fellow passenger.  For as yet palace cars were not.

The maid and valet were seated on the opposite side of the car.

The train started.

The speed was swift, yet seemed slow.  It was the way train they were on, and it stopped at every little station.  They could not have got an express before midnight, and that would have been perilous to their chance of catching the steamer on which their passage to Europe was engaged.

The journey was made without events until about sunset, when the train reached the little mountain station of Edenheights, where it stopped twenty minutes for refreshments.

“What a lovely scene!” said the bride, looking down from the window on her left, into the depths of a small valley lighted up by the last rays of the setting sun streaming through the opening between two wooded hills.

“Yes, dear, lovely, if I can think anything lovely besides yourself,” he replied.

“Look, what a sweet cottage that is almost hidden among the trees.  An elegant cottage of white freestone built after the Grecian order.  How strange, Fabian, to find such a bijou here in this wild, remote section.”

“Probably the residence of some well-to-do official connected with our works,” said Mr. Fabian, carelessly; then—­“Will you come out to the refreshment rooms and have some tea?  See, they are on the opposite side of the train.”

Violet turned and looked on a very different scene.  No wooded and secluded valley with its one lovely cottage, but a row of open saloons and restaurants, crowded and noisy.

“No; I think I will not go in there.  It is not pretty.  You may send me a cup of tea.  I will sit here and enjoy this beautiful valley scene.  And oh, Fabian!  Look there, coming up the hillside, what a beautiful woman!”

Mr. Fabian looked out and saw and recognized Rose Stillwater and saw that she had recognized him.  She was coming directly toward the train.

“Sit here, my love; I will go and bring you some refreshments.  Don’t attempt to get out, dearest; to do so might be dangerous.  I will not be long,” he said, hastily, and rising, he hurried after the other passengers out of the car.

But instead of going into the railway restaurant he went back to the rear of the train, placed himself where he stood out of sight of his wife and of all his fellow passengers, yet in full view of the approaching woman.

“What devil brings that serpent here?” he muttered to himself.  “I must intercept her.  She must not go on board the train.  She must not approach my little wood violet.  Good heavens, no!”

But the woman turned aside voluntarily from her course to the stationary train and walked directly toward himself.