They had supper, and went to their rooms, a luxurious connecting suite. Mrs. Varian was nervous and hysterically gay, laughing to herself at the clever _coup_ by which she had outwitted fate. “I wonder if he saw me--if he guessed why I left the train--but perhaps he was glad of it,” she thought. She walked restlessly up and down the room, chafing under a weight that seemed to rest like a pall on her spirits--a weight of prescient gloom. “Mrs. Varian, you are nervous. You ought to take some drops and retire, or you will not be fit to resume your journey in the morning,” the maid remonstrated, when she had watched her restless movements some time in silence. “You are right Janetta, and I will take your advice. I should like to sleep, for my thoughts are not pleasant to-night,” the lady returned, docilely. But sleep would not come to the heavy lids, for all she tried to deceive Janetta by lying as still as a mouse, with her cheek in the hollow of her little hand. Strange tears crept under the black-fringed lashes and dampened the pillow. The maid caught a stifled sob. “Ah, madame, it is bad dreams you’re having!” she murmured, stroking the dark head gently. “Yes, yes, bad dreams, Janetta.” “And no wonder, with the noise and confusion going on down-stairs, tramping like horses the last ten minutes. I can’t imagine what all the racket means, and if you don’t object, madame, I’ll go down and ask the clerk to have the noise stopped, so you may sleep better.” “You may go.” When Janetta was gone, she sat up in bed, throwing her jeweled hands wildly about crying: “How I deceived that kind, faithful creature! I have not slept a moment. I have been too wretched. There is too great a weight on my heart--the whole weight of cruel years piled into one wild agony to-night! Oh, death were better than this pain!” Janetta was gone fully fifteen minutes before she returned, pale, and tearfully excited, wringing her hands. “Oh, madame, you are still awake! Then thank God for the lucky inspiration that came to you at Charlottesville to leave the train! It was surely Heaven that prompted you, for else we might now both be dead!” “Janetta!” wildly. “Oh, madame, the train was wrecked scarcely a mile further on, and people were killed--some of them--others were wounded, and may die! They are bringing them back here--that was the noise we heard--the tramping of feet that woke you. Oh, I have shocked you, breaking this so abruptly; but I did not think, I was so excited. Pardon me, dear lady. Of course there were none of your friends, as all were strangers to us.” “All strangers!” gasped Mrs. Varian in a hollow voice, with terror in her eyes, as she clung to Janetta’s soothing hands. The excited maid ran on breathlessly: “Those people you noticed in front of us, madame--oh, it was dreadful! The sick woman escaped unhurt, but the servant was badly injured, and the man--Mr. Dawn they say his name is--was killed outright.”