I
had to be restrained. He had told them that I was comparatively harmless,
but he had no doubt that the conductor had whispered it to our
fellow-passengers in the car, which explained their prolonged absence in
the smoker. Then they all laughed, and it seemed to me that the cover to
the bottomless pit was open and that I was falling in.

"I sat still, hardly daring to breathe. Then I began to go over the story
bit by bit, and to put together little things that had happened since we
landed, and even before I had left Vienna; and I saw that I was caught in
a trap. It would be no use to appeal to any one, for no one would believe
me. I looked wildly out at the ground and had desperate thoughts of
climbing over the rail and jumping from the train. Death would be better
than what I should soon have to face. My persecutors had even told how
they had deceived my friends at home by sending telegrams of my mental
condition, and of the necessity for putting me into an asylum. There would
be no hope of appealing to them for help. The only witnesses to my sanity
were far away in Vienna, and how could I reach them if I were in Richard's
power?

"I watched the names of the stations as they flew by, but it gradually
grew dark, and I could hardly make them out. I thought one looked like the
name of a Philadelphia suburb, but I could not be sure.

"I was freezing with horror and with cold, but did not dare to move, lest
I attract their attention.

"We began to rush past rows of houses, and I knew we were approaching a
city. Then, suddenly, the train slowed down and stopped, with very little
warning, as if it intended to halt only a second and then hurry on.

"There was a platform on one side of the train, but we were out beyond the
car-shed, for our train was long. I could not climb over the rail to the
platform, for I was sitting on the side away from the station, and would
have had to pass the car door in order to do so. I should be sure to be
seen.

"On the other side were a great many tracks separated by strong picket
fences as high as the car platform and close to the trains, and they
reached as far as I could see in either direction. I had no time to think,
and there was nothing I could do but climb over the rail and get across
those tracks and fences somehow.

"My hands were so cold and trembling that I could scarcely hold on to the
rail as I jumped over.

"I cannot remember how I got across. Twice I had to cling to a f