asm. As he spoke he
felt that she was looking at him, and he turned his eyes to hers in
order not to appear to be avoiding them. Their glances met for a
second, and perhaps let them into each other's meanings more deeply
than either cared to go.

"Yes; it IS awfully convenient," May brightly agreed, "that you should
be able to meet Ellen after all; you saw how much Mamma appreciated
your offering to do it."

"Oh, I'm delighted to do it." The carriage stopped, and as he jumped
out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his. "Good-bye, dearest,"
she said, her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone
on him through tears.

He turned away and hurried across Union Square, repeating to himself,
in a sort of inward chant: "It's all of two hours from Jersey City to
old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more."

XXIX.

His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish still on it)
met Archer at the ferry, and conveyed him luxuriously to the
Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City.

It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps were lit in the big
reverberating station. As he paced the platform, waiting for the
Washington express, he remembered that there were people who thought
there would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through which the
trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York.
They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted the
building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the
invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity, telephonic
communication without wires, and other Arabian Night marvels.

"I don't care which of their visions comes true," Archer mused, "as
long as the tunnel isn't built yet." In his senseless school-boy
happiness he pictured Madame Olenska's descent from the train, his
discovery of her a long way off, among the throngs of meaningless
faces, her clinging to his arm as he guided her to the carriage, their
slow approach to the wharf among slipping horses, laden carts,
vociferating teamsters, and then the startling quiet of the ferry-boat,
where they would sit side by side under the snow, in the motionless
carriage, while the earth seemed to glide away under them, rolling to
the other side of the sun. It was incredible, the number of things he
had to say to her, and in what eloquent order they were forming
themselves on his lips ...

The clanging and groaning of the tra