The run from Dieppe to Paris by express takes about three hours, and we were about half-way through the journey when Wollaston, who had been absent at least half an hour, re-entered our compartment in conversation with my recent travelling companion, whom I now knew to be Lady Fitzgraham. She hardly acknowledged my look of recognition, and out of the tail of my eye I saw Connie Stapleton glance quickly at each of us in turn, as though Lady Fitzgraham's unmistakable stiffness surprised her. Now the train was running at high speed across the flat, uninteresting stretch of country which lies about thirty miles south of Rouen. Presently the Seine came in sight again, and for some miles we ran parallel with it. We had just rushed through a little wayside station beyond Mantes, the train oscillating so severely as it rattled over the points that Dulcie, Connie Stapleton and Lady Fitzgraham became seriously alarmed, while other occupants of the car glanced apprehensively out of the windows. "This car wants coupling up," Gastrell exclaimed suddenly. "At our next stopping place I'll complain, and get it done." The words had scarcely passed his lips when the swaying increased considerably. All at once the brakes were applied with great force, the train began to slacken speed, and a moment later we knew that we had left the metals. To this day it seems to me extraordinary that any of us should have escaped with our lives. We probably should not have done so had the land not been on a dead level with the rails at the point where the train jumped the track. As a result, the cars did not telescope, as is usual on such occasions, nor did they capsize. Instead, the locomotive dashed forward over the flat, hard-frozen meadow, dragging the cars behind it, then came gradually to a standstill owing to the steam having been shut off. My first thought as soon as the train had stopped was for Dulcie. As I crawled along the car—for we had all been flung on to the ground—I came upon her suddenly. Pale as death, and trembling terribly, she stared at me with a scared expression, and so great was the wave of emotion which swept over me at that instant that I all but forgot my disguise in my wild longing to spring forward and take her in my arms and comfort her. "Are you hurt?" I gasped, retaining only with the utmost difficulty the artificial tone I had adopted from the first, the tone poor Preston had coached me in until my accents, so he had assured me, exactly resembled those of Sir Aubrey Belston. "No—no," came her answer, in a weak voice, "only shaken—but oh, the thirst this shock has given me is fearful. Is there anything I can drink?"