It was still raining, but not so hard. The glare of the headlight was upon us for an instant and then, passing, left us in blinding darkness. The brakes creaked, the wheels grated and at last the train came to a standstill. For one horrible moment I thought it was going on through in spite of its promissory signal. Britton went one way and I the other, with our umbrellas ready. Up and down the line of _wagon lits_ we raced. A conductor stepped down from the last coach but one, and prepared to assist a passenger to alight. I hastened up to him. "Permit me," I said, elbowing him aside. A portly lady squeezed through the vestibule and felt her way carefully down the steps. Behind her was a smallish, bewhiskered man, trying to raise an umbrella inside the narrow corridor, a perfectly impossible feat. She came down into my arms with the limpness of one who is accustomed to such attentions, and then wheeled instantly upon the futile individual on the steps above. "Quick! My hat! Heaven preserve us, how it rains!" she cried, in a deep, wheezy voice and--in German! "Moth--" I began insinuatingly, but the sacred word died unfinished on my lips. The next instant I was scurrying down the platform to where I saw Britton standing. "Have you seen them?" I shouted wildly. "No, sir. Not a sign, sir. Ah! See!" He pointed excitedly down the platform. "No!" I rasped out. "By no possible stretch of the imagination can _that_ be Mrs. Titus. Come! We must ask the conductor. _That_ woman? Good Lord, Britton, she _waddles!_" The large lady and the smallish man passed us on the way to shelter, the latter holding an umbrella over her hat with one hand and lugging a heavy hamper in the other. They were both exclaiming in German. The station guard and the conductor were bowing and scraping in their wake, both carrying boxes and bundles. No one else had descended from the train. I grabbed the conductor by the arm. "Any one else getting off here?" I demanded in English and at once repeated it in German. He shook himself loose, dropped the bags in the shelter of the station house, doffed his cap to the imperious backs of his late passengers, and scuttled back to the car. A moment later the train was under way. "Can you not see for yourself?" he shouted from the steps as he passed me by. Once more I swooped down upon the guard. He was stuffing the large German lady into a small, lopsided carriage, the driver of which was taking off his cap and putting it on again after the manner of a mechanical toy. "Go away," hissed the guard angrily. "This is the Mayor and the Mayoress. Stand aside! Can't you see?" Presently the Mayor and the Mayoress were snugly stowed away in the creaking hack, and it rattled away over the cobblestones. "When does the next train get in?" I asked for the third time. He was still bowing after the departing hack. "Eh? The next? Oh, mein herr, is it you?" "Yes, it is still I. Is there another train soon?"