Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1901-04-26
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3 A NIGHT IN A DILIGENCE. 9
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BY LADY GILBERT ROsA Null
HOLLAND.)

The diligence was in waiting at the
door of the hotel at Coir. A tall, slim
figure appeared in the doorway, an up
lifted face lightly framed in erratic
tresses of brown gold hair crowned by
sombre Tam-o' -Shanter travelling hat
The girl stood confronting an iron
gray world built up of mountains and
storm clouds.
"Really going to face the weather.
said a voice from behind her, and a
chilly looking lady came forward rub
bling her hands in decentralization.
Elizabeth-that was the name in the
copy of Browning in her bag-thought
of the number of guineas in her purse
and of the promise to the Princess
Pompilia to arrive at the Palazzo
| Pompiliani at certain moment.
81 am really going" she said. "a
storm on the Alps will be rather glor-
ious"
She got into the diligence. and put
her face out to smile good-by. Strong
brows, an Intelligent, inquisitlye line
of slender nose, and q mouth with
elastic curves suggested that this must
have been very piquant face before
/ the shadow of those, or other; storm
clouds fell on it.
Only yesterday she was queen in
her own world, queen of her fathers
! heart and home. Now she was sud
denly dethroned and bankrupt her
girlhOod crushed under the ruins of
her fathers fortunes and the tragedy
of his death. She knew that like
things had happened before in the
world she had lived in.
Elizabeth opened her bag and rum
mayed for a magazine, but it was the
Browning that came to her hand. 1t
was not merely as Browning that she
was taking the book across the Alps
with her; yet she would hardly have
acknowledged that it was for the
handwriting of the word Elizabeth in
the front page corner. She held the
book close, though she did not open it,
and her desire for the magazine ap-
peared forgotten.
Night came down early. the wealth
er-darllness fastening its fall. At a
point in the road a long whistle rig
nailed the driver of the diligence, who
thereuDon came to a stop A man
opened the door of the evhicle. made a
, step to ret in, but drew back again
"Onlv ono lady?" he said in English.
"Then ! shall NOT intrude. shall do
very well outside. driver"
Elizabeth felt guilty, though reliev-
ed. As the vehicle swung on and she
lay bac kin her corner she was dis
turbed by an echo. something in the
,sir of hnf t.n ot
the door out of the darkness. She had
pushed the Browning away from her.
Now the storm came down in earnest,
a dry, scattering wind. freezing as the
breath of icebcrgs; the diligence rock
cd and swung; it seemed to her that
at any moment coach and horse and
freight might ride oR on the gale
down the precipice
AS the night wore on and the cold
grew more intense she heard the out
side traveller coughing, the man who
had equal right with herself to the
shelter of an inside seat. Was she go
ing to be so selfish or so prudish as
to give over this fellow-creature to
suffering, perhaps danger, for the ira
tificNtion of her choice for privacy?
She watched her opportunity and COM
munlcated with the driver.
"Will you tell the gentleman" she
said in German, that the lady re-
quests him to come inside of the
coach ?"
A safe battling place was chosen, and
the outside passenger got into the
comfortable interior He thanekd the
lady and then retired into an opposite
corner, and few words were spoken
in German There was no mistake
about the voice this time What had
seemed a mere echo on the wind from
her own brain had become reality.
The impossible had come to pass. She
smiled a little panied smile in the i'm
penetrable darkness Of her place and
her wrappings. SO far was he from
discovering her that he had taken her
for a fraulein. The compliment to her
German did not console her for the
position in which she found herself.
The man slept but Elizabeth was
wakeful The storm was undated.
One or two Withholding stars looked
through rents in the masses of wind
cloud. A line out Of that Browning
book which she had pushed behind her
beat on her ear amid the rattle of the
wheels and the click Of the horses
hoofs:
"Who knows but the world may end
tonight"
Yet another hour passed and the
wheels and hoofs still kept in Ahe
road. The man woke, stirred, sat up
and struck match.
Excuse me-" he said, 81 want to see
what o'clock it is"
Taken by surprise Elizabeth allowed
her open-eyed face to be revealed by
the puny flame, which also lit up for
the moment the clean-cut features of
the fellow-traveller resolute mouth
and chin, thinking forehead, and calm
gray eyes holding more latent tender
ness in their depths than do the eyes
Of most women.
"Eliz-"
The tiny phosphor-nash vanished;
the two sat in darkness as before, and
the mountain Numbered.
Elizabeth passed in an instant
through an exercise which to woman
is something like what the buckling
on of armor must be to a man.
"Do you think the match was eX-
4