E-text prepared by Mary Meehan and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team
by
Author of The Four Feathers, etc.
1907
The Geneva express jerked itself out of the Gare de Lyons. For a fewminutes the lights of outer Paris twinkled past its windows and then witha spring it reached the open night. The jolts and lurches merged into oneregular purposeful throb, the shrieks of the wheels, the clatter of thecoaches, into one continuous hum. And already in the upper berth of hercompartment Mrs. Thesiger was asleep. The noise of a train had no unrestfor her. Indeed, a sleeping compartment in a Continental express was themost permanent home which Mrs. Thesiger had possessed for a good manymore years than she would have cared to acknowledge. She spent her lifein hotels with her daughter for an unconsidered companion. From a winterin Vienna or in Rome she passed to a spring at Venice or atConstantinople, thence to a June in Paris, a July and August at thebathing places, a September at Aix, an autumn in Paris again. But alwaysshe came back to the sleeping-car. It was the one familiar room which wasalways ready for her; and though the prospect from its windows changed,it was the one room she knew which had always the same look, the samecramped space, the same furniture—the one room where, the moment shestepped into it, she was at home.
Yet on this particular journey she woke while it was yet dark. A noiseslight in comparison to the clatter of the train, but distinct incharacter and quite near, told her at once what had disturbed her. Someone was moving stealthily in the compartment—her daughter. That was all.But Mrs. Thesiger lay quite still, and, as would happen to her at times,a sudden terror gripped her by the heart. She heard the girl beneath her,dressing very quietly, subduing the rustle of her garments, even thesound of her breathing.
"How much does she know?" Mrs. Thesiger