“Well, Mr. Guggenslocker, that means, in refined American, ’stop talking,’” said Lorry, controlling a desire to shout.

“Ach, that accounts for his surprise when I talked louder and faster than ever.  I did not know what he meant.  He said positively he would not wait, but just then a second message came from the other station.  I did not know what it was then, but a gentleman told me that it instructed him to hold the train if he wanted to hold his job.  Job is situation, is it not?  Well, when he read that message he said he would wait just twenty minutes.  I asked him to tell me how you were coming to us, but he refused to answer.  Your aunt and I went at once to the telegraph man and implored him to tell us the truth, and he said you were coming in a carriage over a very dangerous road.  Imagine our feelings when he said some people had been killed yesterday on that very road.

“He said you would have to drive like the—­the very devil if you got here in twenty minutes.”

“We did, Uncle Caspar,” interrupted Miss Guggenslocker, naively.  “Our driver followed Mr. Lorry’s instructions.”

Mr. Grenfall Lorry blushed and laughed awkwardly.  He had been admiring her eager face and expressive eyes during Uncle Caspar’s recital.  How sweet her voice when it pronounced his name, how charming the foreign flavor to the words.

“He would not have understood if I had said other things,” he explained, hastily.

“When your aunt and I returned to the train we saw the conductor holding his watch.  He said to me:  ’In just three minutes we pull out.  If they are not here by that time they can get on the best they know how.  I’ve done all I can:  I did not say a word, but went to my section and had Hedrick get out my pistols.  If the train left before you arrived it would be without its conductor.  In the meantime, your Aunt Yvonne was pleading with the wretch.  I hastened back to his side with my pistols in my pocket.  It was then that I told him to start his train if he dared.  That man will never know how close he was to death.  One minute passed, and he coolly announced that but one minute was left.  I had made up my mind to give him one of my pistols when the time was up, and to tell him to defend himself.  It was not to be a duel, for there was nothing regular about it.  It was only a question as to whether the train should move.  Then came the sound of carriage wheels and galloping horses.  Almost before we knew it you were with us.  I am so happy that you were not a minute later.”

There was something so cool and grim in the quiet voice, something so determined in those brilliant eyes, that Grenfall felt like looking up the conductor to congratulate him.  The dinner was served, and while it was being discussed his fair companion of the drive graphically described the experience of twenty strange minutes in a shackle-down mountain coach.  He was surprised to find that she omitted no part,