He looked very handsome and attractive as he lay there. The sun shot one of its early daring bolts of light across his hair as the train turned in its course and lurched northward around a curve. It glinted there for a moment, like a miniature search-light, travelling over the head, showing up every wave and curve. He had the kind of hair which makes a woman’s hand instinctively long to touch it. Celia wondered at the curious thoughts that crowded through her mind, knowing that all the while there was the consciousness that when this man should wake she would think of nothing but his hateful personality as she had known it through the years. And she was his wife! How strange! How terrible! How impossible to live with the thought through interminable weary years! Oh, that she might die at once before her strength failed and her mother found out her sorrow! She lay back again on her pillows very still and tried to think, but somehow a pleasant image of him, her husband, lingered in her memory. Could it be possible that she would ever see anything pleasant in him? Ever endure the days of his companionship? Ever come to the point where she could overlook his outrageous conduct toward her, forgive him, and be even tolerant of him? Sharp memories crowded upon her, and the smarting tears stung their way into her eyes, answering and echoing in her heart, “No, no, a thousand times, no!” She had paid his price and gained redemption for her own, but--forget what he had done? _Never!_ The long strain of weariness, and the monotony of the onrushing train, lulled her half into unconsciousness again, and the man on the couch slumbered on. He came to himself suddenly, with all his senses on the alert, as the thumping noise and motion of the train ceased, and a sudden silence of open country succeeded, broken now and again by distant oncoming and receding voices. He caught the fragment of a sentence from some train official: “It’s a half-hour late, and maybe more. We’ll just have to lie by, that’s all. Here, you, Jim, take this flag and run up to the switch----” The voice trailed into the distance, ended by the metallic note of a hammer doing something mysterious to the underpinning of the car. Gordon sat up suddenly, his hand yet across his breast, where his first waking thought had been to feel if the little pencil-case were safe. Glancing stealthily toward the curtains of the berth, and perceiving no motion, he concluded that the girl still slept. Softly he slipped his feet into his shoes, gave one or two other touches to his toilet, and stood up, looking toward the curtains. He wanted to go out and see where they were stopping, but dared he go without knowing that she was all right? Softly, reverently, he stooped and brought his face close to the opening in the curtains. Celia felt his eyes upon her. Her own were closed, and by a superhuman effort she controlled her breathing, slowly, gently, as if she were asleep.