appeared. How on earth had he ever come to enter a stranger's cab and
drive with a stranger half a mile before either discovered the
situation? And what blind luck had sent the cab to the destination he
also was bound for--and not a second to spare, either?

He looked at her furtively; she stood by the rail, her fur coat white
with snow.

"The poor little thing!" he thought. And he said: "You need not worry
about your section, you know. I have my sister's ticket for you."

After a moment's gloomy retrospection he added: "When your brother
arrives to knock my head off I'm going to let him do it."

She made no comment.

"I don't suppose," he said, "that you ever could pardon what I have
done."

"No," she said, "I never could."

A brief interval passed, disturbed by the hooting of a siren.

"If you had stopped the cab when I asked you to--" she began.

"If I had," he said, "neither you nor I could have caught this train."

"If you had not entered my cab, I should have been here at this moment
with my brother," she said. "Now I am here with you--penniless!"

He looked at her miserably, but she was relentless.

"It is the cold selfishness of the incident that shocks me," she said;
"it is not the blunder that offended me--" She stopped short to give him
a chance to defend himself; but he did not. "And now," she added, "you
have reduced me to the necessity of--borrowing money--"

"Only a ticket," he muttered.

But she was not appeased, and her silence was no solace to him.

After a few minutes he said: "It's horribly cold out here; would you not
care to go into the cabin?"

She shook her head, and her cheeks grew hot, for she had heard the
observations of the ferrymen as the boat left. She would freeze in
obscurity rather than face a lighted cabin full of people. She looked at
the porter who was carrying their valises, and the dreadful idea seized
her that he, too, thought them bride and groom.

Furious, half frightened, utterly wretched, she dared not even look at
the man whose unheard-of stupidity had inflicted such humiliation upon
her.

Tears were close to her eyes; she swallowed, set her head high, and
turned her burning cheeks to the pelting snow.

Oh, he should rue it some day! When, how, where, she did not trouble to
think; but he should rue it, and his punishment should leave a memory
ineffaceable. Pondering on his future tribulation, sternly immersed in
visions of justice, his voice startled he