Sally caught her breath sharply, and her wits seemed to knit together with a sort of mental click; the man was Blue Serge, identified unmistakably to her eyes by the poise of his blue-clad person--the same Blue Serge who owed his life to Sally Manvers! In another instant the way cleared and the man moved smartly on again, with every indication of one spurred on by an urgent errand--but went no more alone. Now a pertinacious shadow dogged him to the farther sidewalk, into the yawning vestibule of the railway station, on (at a trot) through its stupendous lobbies, even to the platform gates that were rudely slammed in his face by implacable destiny in the guise and livery of a gateman. At this, pausing a little to one side, Sally watched Blue Serge accost the guardian, argue, protest, exhibit tickets, and finally endeavour to bribe a way past the barrier. But the train was already pulling out; with a shake of his stubborn head the uniformed official moved on; and ruminating on a power of pent profanity, Blue Serge turned and strode back into the waiting-room, passing so near to Sally that their elbows almost touched without his rousing to the least recognition of her existence. But that in itself was nothing to dismay or check the girl in her purpose, and when Blue Serge a minute later addressed himself to the Pullman bureau she was still his shadow--an all but open eavesdropper upon his communications with the authority of the brass-barred wicket. "I've just missed the eleven ten for Boston," she heard him explain as he displayed tickets on the marble ledge, "and, of course, I'm out my berth reservation. Can you give me a lower on the midnight express?" "No," Authority averred with becoming sententiousness. "An upper, then?" "Nothing left an the midnight." "Not even a stateroom?" "I told you nothing doing." "Well, then, perhaps you can fix me up for the Owl train?" "Wait a minute." A pause ensued while Authority consulted his records; not a long pause, but one long enough to permit a wild, mad inspiration to flash like lightning athwart the clouded horizon of Sally's doubt and perplexity. Surely it were strangely inconsistent with her role of adventuress to permit this man to escape, now that destiny had delivered him into her unscrupulous hands! "Owl train? De luxe room or ordinary stateroom--all I got left." "Good enough. I'll take--" If Blue Serge failed promptly to nominate his choice, it was only because Miss Manvers chose that juncture to furnish him--and incidentally herself, when she had time to think things over--with what was unquestionably for both of them the most staggering surprise of that most surprising night. Peremptorily plucking a blue-serge sleeve with the brazenest impudence imaginable, she advised her victim: "Take both, if you please!"