Ardmore smoked many pipes and did not turn in until after midnight. The car was hot and stuffy and he slept badly. At some hour of the morning, being again awake and restless, he fished his dressing-gown and slippers out of his bag and went out on the rear platform. His was the last car, and he found a camp-stool and crouched down upon it in a corner of the vestibule and stared out into the dark. The hum and click of the rails soothed him and he yielded himself to pleasant reveries. Griswold was well on his way back to Virginia, he remembered--"dear old Grissy!" he murmured; but he resolved to tell Griswold nothing of the prosperous course of his quest. Griswold would never, he knew, countenance so grave a performance as the following of a strange girl to her home; but this would be something for later justification.
Ardmore was half-dozing when the train stopped so abruptly that he was pitched from the camp-stool into a corner of the entry. He got himself together and leaned out into the cool moist air.
The porter came out and stared, for a gentleman in a blue silk wrapper who sat up all night in a vestibule was new to his experience.
"Kildare, sah. This place is wha' we go from South C'lina into N'oth C'lina. Ain't yo' be'th comfor'ble, sah?"
Kildare was a familiar name, and the station, that lay at the outskirts of the town, and a long grim barracks-like building that he identified as a cotton mill, recalled the fact that he was not far from his own ample acres which lay off somewhere to westward. He had occasionally taken this route from the north in going to Ardsley, riding or driving from Kildare about ten miles to his house. In this way he was enabled to go or come without appearing at all in the little village of Ardsley.
The porter left him. He felt ready for sleep now, and resolved to go back to bed as soon as the train started. Just then a dark shadow appeared in the track and a man's voice asked cautiously:
The questioner saw that he was not, before Ardmore could reply, and hesitated a moment.
"The porter's in the car; you can get aboard up forward," Ardmore suggested.
"Be Gov'nor Dangerfield on this train?" asked the man, whom Ardmore now saw dimly outlined in the track below.