Now and then the train stopped, and the newcomers on entering the car stared in turn at the closed curtains. More and more people seemed to pass--their faces began to blend fantastically with the images surging in her brain.... Later in the day a fat man detached himself from the mist of faces. He had a creased stomach and soft pale lips. As he pressed himself into the seat facing her she noticed that he was dressed in black broadcloth, with a soiled white tie. “Husband’s pretty bad this morning, is he?” “Yes.” “Dear, dear! Now that’s terribly distressing, ain’t it?” An apostolic smile revealed his gold-filled teeth. “Of course you know there’s no sech thing as sickness. Ain’t that a lovely thought? Death itself is but a deloosion of our grosser senses. On’y lay yourself open to the influx of the sperrit, submit yourself passively to the action of the divine force, and disease and dissolution will cease to exist for you. If you could indooce your husband to read this little pamphlet--” The faces about her again grew indistinct. She had a vague recollection of hearing the motherly lady and the parent of the freckled child ardently disputing the relative advantages of trying several medicines at once, or of taking each in turn; the motherly lady maintaining that the competitive system saved time; the other objecting that you couldn’t tell which remedy had effected the cure; their voices went on and on, like bell-buoys droning through a fog.... The porter came up now and then with questions that she did not understand, but that somehow she must have answered since he went away again without repeating them; every two hours the motherly lady reminded her that her husband ought to have his drops; people left the car and others replaced them... Her head was spinning and she tried to steady herself by clutching at her thoughts as they swept by, but they slipped away from her like bushes on the side of a sheer precipice down which she seemed to be falling. Suddenly her mind grew clear again and she found herself vividly picturing what would happen when the train reached New York. She shuddered as it occurred to her that he would be quite cold and that some one might perceive he had been dead since morning. She thought hurriedly:--“If they see I am not surprised they will suspect something. They will ask questions, and if I tell them the truth they won’t believe me--no one would believe me! It will be terrible”--and she kept repeating to herself:--“I must pretend I don’t know. I must pretend I don’t know. When they open the curtains I must go up to him quite naturally--and then I must scream.” ... She had an idea that the scream would be very hard to do.