her in the dining-car, and
this time there were no sudden alarms to make me turn sick and panicky.
Afterward, I made another attempt to return to my place in the forward
end of the train, but since Barton would not hear of it, we spent the
remainder of the short afternoon in the Pullman smoker.

During this interval, Barton did most of the talking, growing
confidential along toward the last and telling me a lot about the girl
he was going to marry--the youngest daughter of good old Judge Haskins,
of Jefferson--the man who had sentenced me. If all the world loves a
lover, certainly no considerable part of it cares to pay strict
attention while he descants at length upon the singular and altogether
transcendent charms of the loved one; and when Barton got fairly
started I had time to consider another matter which was of far greater
importance to me.

Earlier in the day Barton had assured me that he would not fail to go
and see my mother and sister when he returned to Glendale. I could
scarcely urge him not to do so, though I knew very well that he would
not stop with telling the home-folks; that he would doubtless tell
every Tom, Dick and Harry in town how he had met me, and where. What I
was asking myself as he burbled on about Peggy Haskins was whether I
might dare give him the one cautionary word which would reveal the true
state of affairs. In the end I decided that it would be most
imprudent, not to say disastrous. He would have sympathized with me
instantly and heartily, but the knowledge would have been as fire to
tow when he got back where he could talk. I could foresee just how it
would bubble out of him as he button-holed each fresh listener: "Say!
you must keep it midnight dark, old man, but I met Bert Weyburn on the
train: he's jumped his parole and, skipped--lit out--vanished! Not a
word to any living soul, mind you; this is a dead secret. We mustn't
give him away, you know,"--and a lot more of the same sort.

The arrival of the through train in the great echoing Terminal at St.
Louis was timed accurately with the coming of a gloomy twilight fitly
climaxing the bleak and stormy day. Having no hand-baggage I was the
first to leave the Pullman, and on the platform I waited for Barton who
had gone back into the body of the car to get his coat and hat and
bags. As he ran down the steps and gave his two suit cases to the
nearest red-cap, the links in a vague chain of recognition snapped
themselves sud