The George Barr McCutcheon MEGAPACK ®. George Barr McCutcheon

Grenfall could feel her breath on his cheek, Her sweet voice went tingling to his toes with every word she uttered. He was in a daze, out of which sung the mad wish that he might clasp her in his arms, kiss her, and then go tumbling down the mountain. She trembled in the next fierce lurches, but gave forth no complaint. He knew that she was in terror but too brave to murmur.

      Unable to resist, he released the strap to which he had clung so grimly, and placed his strong, firm hand encouragingly over the little one that gripped his arm with the clutch of death. It was very dark and very lonely, too!

      “Oh!” she cried, as his hand clasped hers. “You must hold to the strap.”

      “It is broken!” he lied, gladly, “There is no danger. See! My hand does not tremble, does it? Be calm! It cannot be much farther.”

      “Will it not be dreadful if the conductor refuses to stop?” she cried, her hand resting calmly beneath its protector. He detected a tone of security in her voice.

      “But he will stop! Your uncle will see to that, even if the operator fails.”

      “My uncle will kill him if he does not stop or come back for me,” she said, complacently.

      “I was mot wrong,” thought Grenfall; “he looks like a duelist. Who the devil are they, anyhow?” Then aloud: “At this rate we’d be able to beat the train to Washington in a straight-away race. Isn’t it a delightfully wild ride?”

      “I have acquired a great deal of knowledge in America, but this is the first time I have heard your definition of delight. I agree that it is wild.”

      For some moments there was silence in the noisy conveyance. Outside, the crack of the driver’s whip, his hoarse cries, and the nerve-destroying crash of the wheels produced impressions of a mighty storm rather than of peace and pleasure.

      “I am curious to know where you obtained the coin you lost in the car yesterday,” she said at last, as if relieving her mind of a question that had been long subdued.

      “The one you so kindly found for me?” he asked, procrastinatingly.

      “Yes. They are certainly rare in this country.”

      “I never saw a coin like it until after I had seen you,” he confessed. He felt her arm press his a little tighter, and there was a quick movement of her head which told him, dark as it was, that she was trying to see his face and that her blue eyes were wide with something more than terror.

      “I do not understand,” she exclaimed.

      “I obtained the coin from a sleeping-car porter who said some one gave it to him and told him to have a ‘high time’ with it,” he explained in her ear.

      “He evidently did not care for the ‘high time,’” she said, after a moment. He would have given a fortune for one glimpse of her face at that instant.

      “I think he said it would be necessary to go to Europe in order to follow the injunction of the donor. As I am more likely to go to Europe than he, I relieved him of the necessity and bought his right to a ‘high time.’”

      There was a long pause, during which she attempted to withdraw herself from his side, her little fingers struggling timidly beneath the big ones.

      “Are you a collector of coins?” she asked at length, a perceptible coldness in her voice.

      “No. I am considered a dispenser of coins. Still, I rather like the idea of possessing this queer bit of money as a pocket-piece. I intend to keep it forever, and let it descend as an heirloom to the generations that follow me,” he said, laughingly. “Why are you so curious about it?”

      “Because it comes from the city and country in which I live,” she responded. “If you were in a land far from your own would you not be interested in anything—even a coin—that reminded you of home?”

      “Especially if I had not seen one of its kind since leaving home,” he replied, insinuatingly.

      “Oh, but I have seen many like it. In my purse there are several at this minute.”

      “Isn’t it strange that this particular coin should have reminded you of home?”

      “You have no right to question me, sir,” she said, coldly, drawing away, only to be lurched back again. In spite of herself she laughed audibly.

      “I beg your pardon,” he said, tantalizingly.

      “When did he give it you?”

      “Who?”

      “The porter, sir.”

      “You have no right to question me,” he said.

      “Oh!” she gasped. “I did not mean to be inquisitive.”

      “But I grant the right. He gave it me inside of two hours after I first entered the car.”

      “At Denver?”

      “How do you know I got on at Denver?’

      “Why, you passed me in the aisle with your luggage. Don’t you remember?”

      Did he remember! His heart almost turned over with the joy of knowing that she had really noticed and remembered him. Involuntarily his glad fingers closed down upon the gloved hand that lay beneath them.

      “I believe I do remember, now that you speak of it,” he said, in a stifled voice. “You were standing at a window?”

      “Yes; and I saw you kissing those ladies goodby, too. Was one of them your wife, or were they all your sisters? I have wondered.”

      “They—they were—cousins,” he informed her, confusedly, recalling an incident that had been forgotten. He had kissed Mary Lyons and Edna Burrage—but their brothers were present. “A foolish habit, isn’t it?”

      “I do not know. I have no grown cousins,” she replied, demurely. “You Americans have such funny customs, though. Where I live, no gentleman would think of pressing a lady’s hand until it pained her. Is it necessary?” In the question there was a quiet dignity, half submerged in scorn, so pointed, so unmistakable that he flushed, turned cold with mortification, and hastily removed the amorous fingers.

      “I crave your pardon. It is such a strain to hold myself and you against the rolling of this wagon that I unconsciously gripped your hand harder than I knew. You—you will not misunderstand my motive?” he begged, fearful lest he had offended her by his ruthlessness.

      “I could not misunderstand something that does not exist,” she said, simply, proudly.

      “By Jove, she’s beyond comparison!” he thought.

      “You have explained, and I am sorry I spoke as I did. I shall not again forget how much I owe you.”

      “Your indebtedness, if there be one, does not deprive you of the liberty to speak to me as you will. You could not say anything unjust without asking my forgiveness, and when you do that you more than pay the debt. It is worth a great deal to me to hear you say that you owe something to me, for I am only too glad to be your creditor. If there is a debt, you shall never pay it; it is too pleasant an account to be settled with ‘you’re welcome.’ If you insist that you owe much to me, I shall refuse to cancel the debt, and allow it to draw interest forever.”

      “What a financier!” she cried. “That jest yeas worthy of a courtier’s deepest flattery. Let me say that I am proud to owe my gratitude to you. You will not permit it to grow less.”

      “That was either irony or the prettiest speech a woman ever uttered,” he said, warmly. “I also am curious about something. You were reading over my shoulder in the observation car—” “I was not!” she exclaimed, indignantly. “How did you know that?” she inconsistently went on.

      “You forget the mirror in the opposite side of the car.”

      “Ach, now I am offended.”

      “With