"I don't believe one word of it!" exclaimed Miss Smith, then broke off short, realizing that the shock of the girl's piteous admission had sent her own voice lifting and that now she had a second listener. The woman diagonally across from her was sitting bolt upright and a pair of small eyes were narrowing upon her in a squint of watchful and hostile suspicion. Instantly she stood up--a small, competent, determined body.
"I'll be back," she stated, disregarding the elder woman and speaking to the younger. "And I'm going to find out more about you, too, before I'm done."
Her step, departing, was brisk and resolute.
In the aisle near the forward door she encountered the flagman.
"There is a man in the smoker I must see at once," she said. "Will you please go in there and find him and tell him I wish--no, never mind. I see him coming now."
She went a step or two on to meet the person she sought, halting him in the untenanted space at the end of the coach.
"I want to speak with you, please," she began.
"Well, you'll have to hurry," he told her, "because I'm getting off with my party in less'n five minutes from now. What was it you wanted to say to me?"
"That young girl yonder--I became interested in her. I thought perhaps she had been injured. Then more or less by chance I found out the true facts. I spoke to her; she told me a little about her plight."
"Well, if you've been talking to her what's the big idea in talking to me?"
"This isn't mere vulgar curiosity on my part. I have a perfectly proper motive, I think, in inquiring into her case. What is her name."
"Spell it for me, please--the last name?"
He spelled it out, and she after him to fix it in her mind.
"Where does she live--I mean where is her home?"
"Village of Pleasantdale, this state," shortly.
"She's got a mother and that's all, far as I know."
"No asylum. We're taking her to Doctor Shorter's Sanitarium back of Peekskill two miles--Dr. Clement Shorter, specialist in nervous disorders--he's the head."
"It is a private place then and not a state asylum?"
"You are connected with this Doctor Shorter's place, I assume?"
"Oh, sort of an outside man--look after the grounds and help out generally with the patients and all. And now, say, lady, if that'll satisfy you I guess I better be stepping along. I got to see about getting this here patient and the matron off the train; that's the matron that's setting with her."