They stopped at the next station, and still Rachel had not moved. Gerard’s heart bled for her. He knew that she was miserable, that she was being coerced, that she was suffering tortures, which must be doubly keen to a woman as proud as she was, and that she was in such a position that she could not go for comfort or advice to any of her friends. What the conditions were which the white-haired man had insisted upon with her, what the work was that he commanded her to do, he could not, of course, tell. But that there was something distasteful in the work, something shocking, terrible to her, in the task he had insisted upon her performing, was no longer open to question. The words he had heard her utter in remonstrance to the man still rang in Gerard’s ears. “Won’t you let me off? Haven’t I done enough?” What was it that she had done already? What was it that he now wanted her to do? In spite of all he knew, and all he had seen and heard, in spite of the suspicions which would crop up at every point of their acquaintance, concerning the mysterious work upon which Miss Davison was engaged, Gerard had never ceased to ask himself whether there might not be some possible explanation of the suspicious circumstances, some more favorable interpretation to be put upon her mysterious actions, than the obvious one that she was engaged in some sort of criminal enterprise, or that she was not responsible for her actions. This meeting with the man of the white mustache seemed to make the latter hypothesis untenable. Kleptomaniacs do not act under orders; they steal from impulse and impulse alone. Whereas Rachel was plainly under orders, acting against her own will, and at the instigation of someone with a will stronger than her own. It was utterly incomprehensible to Gerard how a woman of Miss Davison’s birth and breeding, a woman who had seemed to him exceptionally high-principled, honest, fearless, and strong-willed, should so far have stifled all the natural and acquired instincts and principles of an honorable woman as to have listened to the suggestions of a man engaged in some sort of nefarious enterprise. Was the theory of hypnotism to be considered? Gerard knew very little about the subject, but had a vague idea that persons under hypnotic influence, far from protesting, as he had heard her do, against the power they feel, act like machines, without strength enough to protest against the will that makes them commit acts at which, were they free agents, their minds might well revolt in horror and dismay. His heart went out to the girl, in spite of all that he had heard; and, touched to the quick by the misery which he knew her to be suffering, he suddenly left his seat, placed himself near her on the opposite side of the compartment, and said in a low earnest voice-- “Miss Davison, what is troubling you? Won’t you speak to me?” The girl started back, dashed away the tears which had gathered in her eyes, and sat up and faced him.