t the rails. One saw
instantly that the thing happened precisely as the workman explained
it. When the heavy engine struck the up-grade, the rails had spread,
the wheels had gone down on the cross-ties, and the whole train was
derailed.

I saw it with a sickening realization of the fact.

Marion took the workman's torch and went over the short piece of track
on which the thing had happened. All the evidences of the accident were
within a short distance. The track was not torn up when the thing began.
There was only the displaced rail pushed away, and the plow marks of the
wheels on the ties. The spread rails had merely switched the train off
the track onto the level of the highway roadbed into the flat field.

Marion and the workman had gone a little way down the track. I was quite
alone at the point of accident, when suddenly some one caught my hand.

I was so startled that I very nearly screamed. The thing happened so
swiftly, with no word.

There behind me was a woman, an old foreign woman, a peasant from some
land of southern Europe. She had my hand huddled up to her mouth.

And she began to speak, bending her aged body, and with every expression
of respect.

"Ah, Contessa, he is not do it, my Umberto. He is run away in fear to
hide in the Barrington quarry. It is accident. It is the doing of the
good God. Ah, Contessa," and her old lips dabbed against my hand. "I
beg him to not go, but he is discharge; an' he make the threat like the
great fool. Ah, Contessa, Contessa," and she went over the words with
absurd repetition, "believe it is by chance, believe it is the doing
of the good God, I pray you." And so she ran on in her quaint old-world
words.

Instantly I remembered the man lying by the roadside, and the threats of
discharged workmen.

I told her the thing was a clean accident, and tried to show her how it
came about. She was effusive in gratitude for my belief. But she seemed
concerned about Marion and the others. She did not go away; she went
over and sat down beside the track.

Presently the others returned. They were so engrossed that they did not
notice my adventure or the aged woman seated on the ground.

Marion was putting questions to the workman.

"There was no obstruction on the track?"

"No, Miss."

"The engineer was watching?"

"Yes, Miss Warfield, he had to slow up and be careful about the
crossing. There is no curve on this grade, he could see every foot of
the way. The track