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"Is you ill, Miss?" asked the porter anxiously.

"I – no. Z – what name was that you read?"

"George Z. Green, Miss – "

"It – it can't be! Look again! It can't be!"

Her face was ashen to the lips; she closed her eyes for a second, swayed; then her hand clutched the door-sill; she straightened up with an effort and opened her eyes, which now seemed dilated by some powerful emotion.

"Let me see that name!" she said, controlling her voice with an obvious effort.

The porter turned the pocket inside out for her inspection. There it was:

"George Z. Green: 1008-1/2 Fifth Avenue, New York."

"If you knows de gemman, Miss," suggested the porter, "you all kin take dishere garmint back yo'se'f when you comes No'th."

"Thank you… Then – I won't trouble you… I'll – I'll ta-t-take it back myself – when I go North."

"I kin ship it if you wishes, Miss."

She said excitedly: "If you ship it from somewhere South, he – Mr. Green – would see where it came from by the parcels postmark on the express tag – wouldn't he?"

"Yaas, Miss."

"Then I don't want you to ship it! I'll do it myself… How can I ship it without giving Mr. Green a clue – " she shuddered, " – a clue to my whereabouts?"

"Does you know de gemman, Miss?"

"No!" she said, with another shudder, – "and I do not wish to. I – I particularly do not wish ever to know him – or even to see him. And above all I do not wish Mr. Green to come South and investigate the circumstances concerning this overcoat. He might take it into his head to do such a thing. It – it's horrible enough that I have – that I actually have in my possession the overcoat of the very man on whose account I left New York at ten minutes' notice – "

Her pretty voice broke and her eyes filled.

"You – you don't understand, porter," she added, almost hysterically, "but my possession of this overcoat – of all the billions and billions of overcoats in all the world – is a t-terrible and astounding b-blow to me!"

"Is – is you afeard o' dishere overcoat, Miss?" inquired the astonished darkey.

"Yes!" she said. "Yes, I am! I'm horribly afraid of that overcoat! I – I'd like to throw it from the train window, but I – I can't do that, of course! It would be stealing – "

Her voice broke again with nervous tears:

"I d-don't want the coat! And I can't throw it away! And if it's shipped to him from the South he may come down here and investigate. He's in New York now. That's why I am on my way South! I – I want him to remain in New York until – until all – d-danger is over. And by the first of April it will be over. And then I'll come North – and bring him his coat – "

The bewildered darkey stared at her and at the coat which she had unconsciously clutched to her breast.

"Do you think," she said, "that M-Mr. Green will need the coat this winter? Do you suppose anything would happen to him if he doesn't have it for a while – pneumonia or anything? Oh!" she exclaimed in a quivering voice, "I wish he and his overcoat were at the South Pole!"

Green withdrew his head and pressed both palms to his temples. Could he trust his ears? Was he going mad? Holding his dizzy head in both hands he heard the girl say that she herself would attend to shipping the coat; heard the perplexed darkey take his leave and go; heard her stateroom door close.

Seated in his stateroom he gazed vacantly at the couch opposite, so completely bewildered with his first over-dose of Romance that his brain seemed to spin like a frantic squirrel in a wheel, and his thoughts knocked and jumbled against each other until it truly seemed to him that all his senses were fizzling out like wet firecrackers.

What on earth had he ever done to inspire such horror in the mind of this young girl?

What terrible injury had he committed against her or hers that the very sound of his name terrified her – the mere sight of his overcoat left her almost hysterical?

Helplessly, half stupefied, he cast about in his wrecked mind to discover any memory or record of any injury done to anybody during his particularly blameless career on earth.

In school he had punched the noses of several schoolmates, and had been similarly smitten in return. That was the extent of physical injury ever done to anybody.

Of grave moral wrong he knew he was guiltless. True, he had frequently skinned the assembly at convivial poker parties. But also he had often opened jacks only to be mercilessly deprived of them amid the unfeeling and brutal laughter of his companions. No, he was not guilty of criminal gambling.

Had he ever done a wrong to anybody in business? Never. His firm's name was the symbol for probity.

He dashed his hands to his brow distractedly. What in Heaven's name had he done to fill the very soul of this young girl with fear and loathing? What in the name of a merciful Providence had he, George Z. Green, banker and broker, ever done to drive this young and innocent girl out of the City of New York!

To collect and marshal his disordered thoughts was difficult but he accomplished it with the aid of cigarettes. To a commonplace intellect there is no aid like a cigarette.

At first he was inclined to believe that the girl had merely mistaken him for another man with a similar name. George Z. Green was not an unusual name.

But his address in town was also written inside his coat pocket; and she had read it. Therefore, it was painfully evident to him that her detestation and fear was for him.

What on earth had inspired such an attitude of mind toward himself in a girl he had seen for the first time that afternoon? He could not imagine. And another strange feature of the affair was that she had not particularly noticed him. Therefore, if she entertained such a horror of him, why had she not exhibited some trace of it when he was in her vicinity?

Certainly she had not exhibited it by crying. He exonerated himself on that score, for she had been on the verge of tears when he first beheld her hurrying out of the parlours of the Princess Zimbamzim.

It gradually became plain to him that, although there could be no doubt that this girl was afraid of him, and cordially disliked him, yet strangely enough, she did not know him by sight.

Consequently, her attitude must be inspired by something she had heard concerning him. What?

He puffed his cigarette and groaned. As far as he could remember, he had never harmed a fly.

XXIII

That night he turned in, greatly depressed. Bad dreams assailed his slumbers – menacing ones like the visions that annoyed Eugene Aram.

And every time he awoke and sat up in his bunk, shaken by the swaying car, he realised that Romance had also its tragic phases – a sample of which he was now enduring. And yet, miserable as he was, a horrid sort of joy neutralised the misery when he recollected that it was Romance, after all, and that he, George Z. Green, was in it up to his neck.

A grey morning – a wet and pallid sky lowering over the brown North Carolina fields – this was his waking view from his tumbled bunk.

Neither his toilet nor his breakfast dispelled the gloom; certainly the speeding landscape did not.

He sat grimly in the observation car, reviewing a dispiriting landscape set with swamps, razorbacks, buzzards, and niggers.

Luncheon aided him very little. She had not appeared at all. Either her own misery and fright were starving her to death or she preferred to take her meals in her stateroom. He hoped fervently the latter might be the case; that murder might not be added to whatever else he evidently was suspected of committing.

Like the ticket he had seen her purchase, his own ticket took him as far as Ormond. Of course he could go on if she did. She could go to the West Indies and ultimately to Brazil. So could he. They were on the main travelled road to almost anywhere.

Nevertheless, he was on the watch at St. Augustine; and when he saw her come forth hastily and get into a bus emblazoned with the name and escutcheon of the Hotel Royal Orchid, he got in also.

The bus was full. Glancing at the other occupants of the bus, she included him in her brief review, and to his great relief he saw her incurious blue eyes pass calmly to the next countenance.

A dreadful, almost hysterical impulse assailed him to suddenly rise and say: "I am George Z. Green!" – merely to observe the cataclysmic effect on her.

But it did not seem so funny to him on after thoughts, for the chances appeared to be that she could not survive the shock. Which scared him; and he looked about nervously for fear somebody who knew him might be among the passengers, and might address him by name.

In due time the contents of the bus trooped into the vast corridors of the Hotel Royal Orchid. One by one they registered; and on the ledger Green read her name with palpitating heart – Miss Marie Wiltz and Maid. And heard her say to the clerk that her maid had been delayed and would arrive on the next train.

It never occurred to this unimaginative man to sign any name but his own to the register that was shoved toward him. Which perfectly proves his guilelessness and goodness.

He went to his room, cleansed from his person the stains of travel, and, having no outer clothes to change to, smoked a cigarette and gazed moodily from the window.

Now, his window gave on the drive-encircled fountain before the front entrance to the hotel; and, as he was standing there immersed in tobacco smoke and gloom, he was astonished to see the girl herself come out hastily, travelling satchel in hand, and spring lightly into a cab. It was one of those victorias which are stationed for hire in front of such southern hotels; he could see her perfectly plainly; saw the darkey coachman flourish his whip; saw the vehicle roll away.

The next instant he seized his new satchel, swept his brand new toilet articles into it, snapped it, picked up hat and cane, and dashed down stairs to the desk.

Here he paid his bill, ran out, and leaped into a waiting victoria.

"Where did that other cab drive?" he demanded breathlessly to his negro coachman. "Didn't you hear what the young lady said to her driver?"

"Yaas, suh. De young lady done say she's in a pow'ful hurry, suh. She 'low she gotta git to Ormond."

"Ormond! There's no train!"

"Milk-train, suh."

"What! Is she going to Ormond on a milk-train?"

"Yaas, suh."

"All right, then. Drive me to the station."

It was not very far. She was standing alone on the deserted platform, her bag at her feet, his overcoat lying across it. Her head was bent, and she did not notice him at first. Never had he seen a youthful figure so exquisitely eloquent of despair.

The milk-train was about an hour overdue, which would make it about due in the South. Green seated himself on a wooden bench and folded his hands over the silver crook of his walking-stick. The situation was now perfectly clear to him. She had come down from her room, and had seen his name on the register, had been seized by a terrible panic, and had fled.

Had he been alone and unobserved, he might have attempted to knock his brains out with his walking-stick. He desired to, earnestly, when he realised what an ass he had been to sign the register.

She had begun to pace the platform, nervously, halting and leaning forward from time to time to scan impatiently the long, glittering perspective of the metals.

It had begun to grow dusk. Lanterns on switches and semaphores flashed out red, green, blue, white, stringing their jewelled sparks far away into the distance.

To and fro she paced the empty platform, passing and repassing him. And he began to notice presently that she looked at him rather intently each time.

He wondered whether she suspected his identity. Guiltless of anything that he could remember having done, nevertheless he shivered guiltily every time she glanced at him.

Then the unexpected happened; and he fairly shook in his shoes as she marched deliberately up to him.

"I beg your pardon," she said in a very sweet and anxious voice, "but might I ask if you happen to be going to Ormond?"

He was on his feet, hat in hand, by this time; his heart and pulses badly stampeded; but he managed to answer calmly that he was going to Ormond.

"There is only a milk-train, I understand," she said.

"So I understand."

"Do you think there will be any difficulty in my obtaining permission to travel on it? The station-master says that permission is not given to ladies unaccompanied."

She looked at him almost imploringly.

"I really must go on that train," she said in a low voice. "It is desperately necessary. Could you – could you manage to arrange it for me? I would be so grateful! – so deeply grateful!"

"I'll do what I can," said that unimaginative man. "Probably bribery can fix it – "

"There might be – if – if – you would be willing – if you didn't object – I know it sounds very strange – but my case is so desperate – " She checked herself, flushing a delicate pink. And he waited.

Then, very resolutely she looked up at him:

"Would you – could you p-pretend that I am – am – your sister?"

"Certainly," he said. An immense happiness seized him. He was not only up to his neck in Romance. It was already over his head, and he was out of his depth, and swimming.

"Certainly," he repeated quietly, controlling his joy by a supreme effort. "That would be the simplest way out of it, after all."

She said earnestly, almost solemnly: "If you will do this generous thing for – for a stranger – in very deep perplexity and trouble – that stranger will remain in your debt while life lasts!"

She had not intended to be dramatic; she may not have thought she was; but the tears again glimmered in her lovely eyes, and the situation seemed tense enough to George Z. Green.

Moreover, he felt that complications already were arising – complications which he had often read of and sometimes dreamed of. Because, as he stood there in the southern dusk, looking at this slim, young girl, he began to realise that never before in all his life had he gazed upon anything half as beautiful.

Very far away a locomotive whistled: they both turned, and saw the distant headlight glittering on the horizon like a tiny star.

"W-would it be best for us to t-take your name or mine – in case they ask us?" she stammered, flushing deeply.

"Perhaps," he said pleasantly, "you might be more likely to remember yours in an emergency."

"I think so," she said naïvely; "it is rather difficult for me to deceive anybody. My name is Marie Wiltz."

"Then I am Mr. Wiltz, your brother, for an hour or two."

"If you please," she murmured.

It had been on the tip of his tongue to add, "Mr. George Z. Wiltz," but he managed to check himself.

The great, lumbering train came rolling in; the station agent looked very sharply through his spectacles at Miss Wiltz when he saw her with Green, but being a Southerner, he gallantly assumed that it was all right.

One of the train crew placed two wooden chairs for them in the partly empty baggage car; and there they sat, side by side, while the big, heavy milk cans were loaded aboard, and a few parcels shoved into their car. Then the locomotive tooted leisurely; there came a jolt, a resonant clash; and the train was under way.

XXIV

For a while the baggage master fussed about the car, sorting out packages for Ormond; then, courteously inquiring whether he could do anything for them, and learning that he could not, he went forward into his own den, leaving Marie Wiltz and George Z. Green alone in a baggage car dimly illumined by a small and smoky lamp.

Being well-bred young people, they broke the tension of the situation gracefully and naturally, pretending to find it amusing to travel in a milk train to a fashionable southern resort.

And now that the train was actually under way and speeding southward through the night, her relief from anxiety was very plain to him. He could see her relax; see the frightened and hunted look in her eyes die out, the natural and delicious colour return to her cheeks.

As they conversed with amiable circumspection and pleasant formality, he looked at her whenever he dared without seeming to be impertinent; and he discovered that the face she had worn since he had first seen her was not her natural expression; that her features in repose or in fearless animation were winning and almost gay.

She had a delightful mouth, sweet and humourous; a delicate nose and chin, and two very blue and beautiful eyes that looked at him at moments so confidently, so engagingly, that the knowledge of what her expression would be if she knew who he was smote him at moments, chilling his very marrow.

What an astonishing situation! How he would have scorned a short story with such a situation in it! And he thought of Williams – poor old Williams! – and mentally begged his pardon.

For he understood now that real life was far stranger than fiction. He realised at last that Romance loitered ever around the corner; that Opportunity was always gently nudging one's elbow.

There lay his overcoat on the floor, trailing over her satchel. He looked at it so fixedly that she noticed the direction of his gaze, glanced down, blushed furiously.

"It may seem odd to you that I am travelling with a man's overcoat," she said, "but it will seem odder yet when I tell you that I don't know how I came by it."

"That is odd," he admitted smilingly. "To whom does it belong?"

Her features betrayed the complicated emotions that successively possessed her – perplexity, anxiety, bashfulness.

After a moment she said in a low voice: "You have done so much for me already – you have been so exceedingly nice to me – that I hesitate to ask of you anything more – "

"Please ask!" he urged. "It will be really a happiness for me to serve you."

Surprised at his earnestness and the unembarrassed warmth of his reply, she looked up at him gratefully after a moment.

"Would you," she said, "take charge of that overcoat for me and send it back to its owner?"

He laughed nervously: "Is that all? Why, of course I shall! I'll guarantee that it is restored to its rightful owner if you wish."

"Will you? If you do that– " she drew a long, sighing breath, "it will be a relief to me – such a wonderful relief!" She clasped her gloved hands tightly on her knee, smiled at him breathlessly.

"I don't suppose you will ever know what you have done for me. I could never adequately express my deep, deep gratitude to you – "

"But – I am doing nothing except shipping back an overcoat – "

"Ah – if you only knew what you really are doing for me! You are helping me in the direst hour of need I ever knew. You are aiding me to regain control over my own destiny! You are standing by me in the nick of time, sheltering me, encouraging me, giving me a moment's respite until I can become mistress of my own fate once more."

The girl had ended with a warmth, earnestness and emotion which she seemed to be unable to control. Evidently she had been very much shaken, and in the blessed relief from the strain the reaction was gathering intensity.

They sat in silence for a few moments; then she looked up, nervously twisting her gloved fingers.

"I am sorry," she said in a low voice, "not to exhibit reticence and proper self-control before a – a stranger… But I – I have been – rather badly – frightened."

"Nothing need frighten you now," he said.

"I thought so, too. I thought that as soon as I left New York it would be all right. But – but the first thing I saw in my stateroom was that overcoat! And the next thing that occurred was – was almost – stupefying. Until I boarded this milk-train, I think I must have been almost irresponsible from sheer fright."

"What frightened you?" he asked, trembling internally.

"I – I can't tell you. It would do no good. You could not help me."

"Yet you say I have already aided you."

"Yes… That is true… And you will send that overcoat back, won't you?"

"Yes," he said. "To remember it, I'd better put it on, I think."

The southern night had turned chilly, and he was glad to bundle into his own overcoat again.

"From where will you ship it?" she asked anxiously.

"From Ormond – "

"Please don't!"

"Why?"

"Because," she said desperately, "the owner of that coat might trace it to Ormond and – and come down there."

"Where is he?"

She paled and clasped her hands tighter:

"I – I thought – I had every reason to believe that he was in New York. B-but he isn't. He is in St. Augustine!"

"You evidently don't wish to meet him."

"No – oh, no, I don't wish to meet him – ever!"

"Oh. Am I to understand that this – this fellow," he said fiercely, "is following you?"

"I don't know – oh, I really don't know," she said, her blue eyes wide with apprehension. "All I know is that I do not desire to see him – or to have him see me… He must not see me; it must not be – it shall not be! I – it's a very terrible thing; – I don't know exactly what I'm – I'm fighting against – because it's – it's simply too dreadful – "

Emotion checked her, and for a moment she covered her eyes with her gloved hands, sitting in silence.

"Can't I help you?" he asked gently.

She dropped her hands and stared at him.

"I don't know. Do you think you could? It all seems so – like a bad dream. I'll have to tell you about it if you are to help me – won't I?"

"If you think it best," he said with an inward quiver.

"That's it. I don't know whether it is best to ask your advice. Yet, I don't know exactly what else to do," she added in a bewildered way, passing one hand slowly over her eyes. "Shall I tell you?"

"Perhaps you'd better."

"I think I will!.. I – I left New York in a panic at a few moments' notice. I thought I'd go to Ormond and hide there for a while, and then, if – if matters looked threatening, I could go to Miami and take a steamer for the West Indies, and from there – if necessary – I could go to Brazil – "

"But why?" he demanded, secretly terrified at his own question.

She looked at him blankly a moment: "Oh; I forgot. It – it all began without any warning; and instantly I began to run away."

"From what?"

"From – from the owner of that overcoat!"

"Who is he?"

"His name," she said resolutely, "is George Z. Green. And I am running away from him… And I am afraid you'll think it very odd when I tell you that although I am running away from him I do not know him, and I have never seen him."

"Wh-what is the matter with him?" inquired Green, with a sickly attempt at smiling.

"He wants to marry me!" she exclaimed indignantly. "That is what is the matter with him."

"Are you sure?" he asked, astounded.

"Perfectly. And the oddest thing of all is that I do not think he has ever seen me – or ever even heard of me."

"But how can – "

"I'll tell you. I must tell you now, anyway. It began the evening before I left New York. I – I live alone – with a companion – having no parents. I gave a dinner dance the evening before I – I ran away; – there was music, too; professional dancers; – a crystal-gazing fortune teller – and a lot of people – loads of them."

She drew a short, quick breath, and shook her pretty head.

"Everybody's been talking about the Princess Zimbamzim this winter. So I had her there… She – she is uncanny – positively terrifying. A dozen women were scared almost ill when they came out of her curtained corner.

"And – and then she demanded me… I had no belief in such things… I went into that curtained corner, never for one moment dreaming that what she might say would matter anything to me… In ten minutes she had me scared and trembling like a leaf… I didn't want to stay; I wanted to go. I – couldn't, somehow. My limbs were stiff – I couldn't control them – I couldn't get up! All my will power – was – was paralysed!"

The girl's colour had fled; she looked at Green with wide eyes dark with the memory of fear.

"She told me to come to her for an hour's crystal gazing the following afternoon. I – I didn't want to go. But I couldn't seem to keep away.