Her attendant drugged into a senseless clod beside her, her faculties all benumbed, no eye to watch the tragedy, no hand to seize the villain--why did he not act out his instructions? She held him by that mesmeric gaze, where the soul stood plainly forth pleading for mercy. She was so young, so gentle, so sorrowful. Oh! he cowered away from his fell purpose; he dallied with his chance, and that chance slipped by. The tram glided into a station shed; the red lights glowed in at the window, palling the flickering tin lamp hanging from the roof. Strangers rushed pell-mell across the platform; and at last the door of this car was opened, and a young man looked in. Margaret vehemently sought to cry out to him, to stretch out her hands, to moan, even, but in vain. She seemed petrified. The young man's eyes passed aimlessly over the white-faced woman in black and her sleeping escort, and fastened doubtfully upon the disconcerted ruffian. "Is Richard O'Grady in this car?" shouted he. "I am the chap you want," returned the man in the fur coat. The other handed him a telegram and vanished instantly, and the car moved on. She saw him hold out a slip of paper to the dim flame and master its message, and the sickly pallor crept out of his cheeks and the coarse red came back. He looked hard in her face with a sinister light on his visage, and smiled at her with a certain kind of grim admiration. "You've overcrowded him, have you, my clever wench?" mattered he. "You must be a sharp 'un to do _him_. Curse your haunting eyes! you've all but overcrowded _me_, in spite of my leather hide. Confound you! I'll never get rid of them great eyes." He broke out into a volley of fearful maledictions upon her, himself, and the "beast" who had given him the job, tearing up the telegram into inch pieces and tossing them insolently into Margaret's lap. It was evident that he considered her blind and deaf, as well as paralyzed, else he never would have exposed his principal as he did in these violent imprecations. So the train glided on upon its midnight journey, and the man turned his back to his intended victim. But she was adoring God in her heart of hearts for her dear life's preservation. Her cold stoicism melted, the bitter fortitude with which she had looked for death fled. How _could_ she have cast that reproachful thought at Heaven and believed herself forsaken? Her heart swelled with gratitude and remorse now that she saw her mistake; and, although she could not move an eye-lash, her emotion surged higher and higher until it burst through the barriers of the spell which bound her, and great tears gushed from her eyes. At the first station they came to, the man rose to leave the car. He glanced sharply at Margaret's wet face, and jerked down the window that she might have some air, then, with an oath, stumbled over Purcell's feet and got out. Then the long night crept by, and gradually the lady and her servant recovered, and spoke to each other.