The Best Man by Grace Livingston Hill Page A

did not move nor attempt to swallow.
    Then a panic seized him. Suppose she was dying? Not until later, when he had quiet and opportunity for thought, did it occur to him what a terrible responsibility he had dared to take upon himself in letting her people leave her with him; what a fearful position he would have been in if she had really died. At the moment his whole thought was one of anguish at the idea of losing her; anxiety to save her precious life; and not for himself.
    Forgetting his own need of quiet and obscurity, he laid her gently back upon the couch again, and rushed from the stateroom out into the aisle of the sleeper. The conductor was just making his rounds and he hurried to him with a white face.
    “Is there a doctor on board, or have you any restoratives?” There is a lady –” He hesitated and the color rolled freshly into his anxious face. “That is – my wife.” He spoke the word unwillingly, having at the instant of speaking realized that he must say this to protect her good name. It seemed like uttering a falsehood, or stealing another man’s property; and yet, technically, it was true, and for her sake at least he must acknowledge it.
    “My wife,” he began again more connectedly, “is ill – unconscious.”
    The conductor looked at him sharply. He had sized them up as a wedding party when they came down the platform toward the train. The young man’s blush confirmed his supposition.
    “I’ll see!” he said briefly. “Go back to her and I’ll bring some one.”
    It was just as Gordon turned back that the thick-set man entered the car from the other end and met him face to face, but Gordon was too distraught at that moment to notice him, for his mind was at rest about his pursuer as soon as the train started.
    Not so with the pursuer however. His keen little eyes took in the white, anxious face, the smear of sticking plaster about the mouth and eyebrows, and instantly knew his man. His instincts had not failed him after all.
    He put out a pair of brawny fists to catch at him, but a lurch of the train and Gordon’s swift stride out-purposed him, and by the time the little man had righted his footing Gordon was disappearing into the stateroom, and the conductor with another man was in the aisle behind him waiting to pass. He stepped back and watched. At least he had driven his prey to quarry and there was no possible escape now until the train stopped. He would watch that door as a cat watched a mouse, and perhaps be able to send a telegram for help before he made any move at all. It was as well that his impulse to take the man then and there had come to naught. What would the other passengers have thought of him? He must of course move cautiously. What a blunder he had almost made. It was not part of his purpose to make public his errand. The men who were behind him did not wish to be known, nor to have their business known.
    With narrowing eyes he watched the door of the stateroom as the conductor and doctor came and went. He gathered from a few questions asked by one of the passengers that there was some one sick, probably the lady he had seen faint as the train started. It occurred to him that this might be his opportunity, and when the conductor came out of the drawing-room the second time he inquired if any assistance was needed, and implied that doctoring was his profession, though it would be a sorry patient that had only his attention. However, if he had one accomplishment it was bluffing, and he never stopped at any profession that suited his needs.
    The conductor was annoyed at the interruptions that had already occurred and he answered him brusquely that they had all the necessary and there wasn’t anything the matter anyway.
    There was nothing left for the man to do but wait.
    He subsided with his eye on the stateroom door, and later secured a berth in plain sight of that door, but gave no order to have it made up until every other passenger in the car was gone to what rest