Off in the west a thread of crimson still lingered on the horizon, but it soon faded into a line of pale amber and then disappeared. The lights of the train blared out and shut the travelers into the narrow confines of the car, and Mary Dunlap leaned back in her seat and fell to studying her fellow passengers. The usual mother with many children who had been the usual noisy nuisance all the afternoon, had subsided into quiet for the time being; the mother and the littlest baby being asleep, the rest occupied with a picture book some thoughtful traveler had donated. The personnel of the car had changed somewhat during the afternoon. Several people had got out at the stations along the way and others had come in. Among the latter were the two people who occupied the seat directly in front of Mary Dunlap, and before she realized it, she was thoroughly absorbed in studying them, her interest caught by the singularly pure and lovely outline of the young woman's face, in profile. They were apparently a young married couple, though the man was not so young as the girl, who looked entirely too young to be married yet. As she studied them she could not help wondering over the girl's choice of a husband. They did not seem at all well mated. The girl was the far more attractive of the two. Mary Dunlap decided that they were newly wed. The man had an air of proprietorship which she thought could only be explained by that relation. To the girl everything seemed to be strange and new, but she did not wear a happy face. "Poor child!" thought the watcher. "She has just said goodbye to her mother, I suppose." Then for a moment, memory carried her swiftly back to the day when she had been called upon to bid one dear girl the long goodbye. Still, she reflected, on this girl's face there was unrest—real anxiety. There were even moments when she fancied that there was actual fear! What could be the explanation? The husband had been most attentive, almost oppressively so. Could he be urging her to some course she did not approve? "The man looks like a gentleman tyrant!" she told herself. "He will be certain to have his own way in the end. That poor child might as well yield first as last." The call for dinner in the dining car took her away from their vicinity for a little while, and before she returned they had followed her to the diner. But later in the evening when they came back to their seats, she could not help seeing that they were having some kind of a heated argument, and that the girl was deeply distressed, almost on the verge of tears, the man alternately vexed and cajoling. Mary Dunlap was a woman of wide interests and keen insight into character. She could not help siding with the young wife, and feeling that the man was in the wrong. He looked like a man who would have his own way at all costs.