Shepherdstown was on the main line of the Kansas Pacific Road, and as he alighted at its station, the big through trains from San Francisco swept out of the stormy distance and stopped also.  He remembered, as he mingled with the passengers, hearing a childish voice ask if this was the Californian train.  He remembered hearing the amused and patient reply of the station-master:  “Yes, sonny—­here she is again, and here’s her passengers,” as he got into the omnibus and drove to the hotel.  Here he resolved to perform his disagreeable duty as quickly as possible, and on his way to his room stopped for a moment at the office to ask for Ricketts’ address.  The clerk, after a quick glance of curiosity at his new guest, gave it to him readily, with a somewhat familiar smile.  It struck Falloner also as being odd that he had not been asked to write his name on the hotel register, but this was a saving of time he was not disposed to question, as he had already determined to make his visit to Ricketts at once, before dinner.  It was still early evening.

He was washing his hands in his bedroom when there came a light tap at his sitting-room door.  Falloner quickly resumed his coat and entered the sitting-room as the porter ushered in a young lady holding a small boy by the hand.  But, to Falloner’s utter consternation, no sooner had the door closed on the servant than the boy, with a half-apologetic glance at the young lady, uttered a childish cry, broke from her, and calling, “Dick!  Dick!” ran forward and leaped into Falloner’s arms.

The mere shock of the onset and his own amazement left Bob without breath for words.  The boy, with arms convulsively clasping his body, was imprinting kisses on Bob’s waistcoat in default of reaching his face.  At last Falloner managed gently but firmly to free himself, and turned a half-appealing, half-embarrassed look upon the young lady, whose own face, however, suddenly flushed pink.  To add to the confusion, the boy, in some reaction of instinct, suddenly ran back to her, frantically clutched at her skirts, and tried to bury his head in their folds.

“He don’t love me,” he sobbed.  “He don’t care for me any more.”

The face of the young girl changed.  It was a pretty face in its flushing; in the paleness and thoughtfulness that overcast it it was a striking face, and Bob’s attention was for a moment distracted from the grotesqueness of the situation.  Leaning over the boy she said in a caressing yet authoritative voice, “Run away for a moment, dear, until I call you,” opening the door for him in a maternal way so inconsistent with the youthfulness of her figure that it struck him even in his confusion.  There was something also in her dress and carriage that equally affected him:  her garments were somewhat old-fashioned in style, yet of good material, with an odd incongruity to the climate and season.