hat has nothing to do with my story.
Fritzing dropped the papers on the platform, and had so little public
spirit that he groaned aloud with relief.

"Shilling and a penny 'alfpenny, please, sir," said the newspaper-boy
glibly. "_Westminster Gazette_, sir, _Daily Mail_, _Sporting and
Dramatic_, one _Lady_, and two _Standards_." From which it will be
seen that Fritzing had seized his handful very much at random.

He paid the boy without heeding his earnest suggestions that he should
try _Tit-Bits_, the _Saturday Review_, and _Mother_, to complete, said
the boy, in substance if not in words, his bird's-eye view over the
field of representative English journalism, and went back to the
Princess with a lighter heart than he had had for months. The
detective, apparently one of Nature's gentlemen, picked up the
scattered papers, and following Fritzing offered them him in the
politest way imaginable just as Priscilla was saying she wanted to see
what tea-baskets were like.

"Sir," said the detective, taking off his hat, "I believe these are
yours."

"Sir," said Fritzing, taking off his cap in his turn and bowing with
all the ceremony of foreigners, "I am much obliged to you."

"Pray don't mention it, sir," said the detective, on whose brain the
three were in that instant photographed--the veiled Priscilla, the
maid sitting on the edge of the seat as though hardly daring to sit
at all, and Fritzing's fine head and mop of grey hair.

Priscilla, as she caught his departing eye, bowed and smiled
graciously. He withdrew to a little distance, and fell into a
reverie: where had he seen just that mechanically gracious bow and
smile? They were very familiar to him.

As the train slowly left the station he saw the lady in the veil once
more. She was alone with her maid, and was looking out of the window
at nothing in particular, and the station-master, who was watching the
train go, chanced to meet her glance. Again there was the same smile
and bow, quite mechanical, quite absent-minded, distinctly gracious.
The station-master stared in astonishment after the receding carriage.
The detective roused himself from his reverie sufficiently to step
forward and neatly swing himself into the guard's van: there being
nothing to do in Dover he thought he would go to London.

I believe I have forgotten, in the heat of narration, to say that the
fugitives were bound for Somersetshire. Fritzing had been a great
walker in the days when he l