perceived her shiver, without waking, and make a sleepy effort to fold her shawl closer. The night was growing colder, and Wilton, observing a small portion of the window next his companion open, rose to shut it. In moving to accomplish this, he touched the slumberer's foot. She opened her eyes with a sleepy, startled look—great, dark, lustrous eyes, which seemed to banish the childlike expression of her face.

"I beg your pardon," said Colonel Wilton; "but it is cold, and I thought you would like the window shut."

"Oh, yes, thank you; it is very, very cold." She sat up and rubbed her hands together, tying the blue scarf closer round her head, and thrusting carelessly under it a heavy tress of very dark-brown hair, that had become loosened, with utter disregard of appearances, as if only desirous of rest. "I am so, so weary," she went on, "and I dream instead of sleeping."

"That is probably because of your uneasy position," said Wilton. "If you will allow me to arrange the cushions for you, I think you may rest better—I am an old traveller."

"You are very good," she returned, hesitatingly; "how do you mean?"

"I will show you;" and he proceeded to make supports for one of the unoccupied cushions with a walking-stick and umbrella so as to form a couch, and then rolled up his plaid loosely for an impromptu pillow. "Now," he said, with frank good-nature, "you can rest really; and, if you will wrap yourself in my cloak, I dare say you will soon forget you are in a railway-carriage."

"Thank you very much," she replied. "How good of you to take so much trouble—and your plaid, too! You have left yourself nothing!"

"Oh, I do not need anything! Take the cloak, and I wish you good-night."

He checked an inclination to wrap it round her, lest she might think him too officious; and, smiling at the change in his own sentiments toward his fellow-traveller, withdrew to his original position.

"At least you can smoke," said she, as she placed herself upon the couch he had improvised. "I really like the perfume of a cigar."

Thus encouraged, Wilton drew forth his cigar-case and comforted himself with a weed, while he had the satisfaction of observing the perfect stillness of the rather shapeless mass of drapery made by his heavy cloak round the slender form slumbering beneath it. So they sped on into the night. Wilton's cigar was finished; he threw the end from the window. Gazing a moment at the dim, uncanny trees and hedges as they flew past with ghastly rapidity, and settling himself in his corner, he too tried to sleep for a long time in vain. The past—the possible future—the absolute present—his sudden interest in his companion, crowded and jostled each other in his thoughts, but gradually all became indistinct, and at last he slept.

Uneasily, though—visions of struggles—of men and horses dying—of a desperate necessity to carry an order from the general to a remote division, and the utter impossibility of getting his horse to move—dreams like these distracted him; at last a heavy battery on his left opened fire, and he woke.

Woke suddenly, completely, with a feeling that the end of everything was at hand. A noise of tearing and crashing filled his ears, mingled with shrieks and yells; the carriage heaved violently, first to one side, and then to the other, in which position it remained.

As Wilton sprang to his feet, his fellow-traveller started quickly to hers; and, grasping his arm, exclaimed, with a certain despairing calm that struck him even in such a moment: "Is it—is it death?"

He did not reply; but, holding on by the bar which supports the netting over the seats, he managed to open the door next him. It was on the upheaved side, and he found a heap of clay jammed under the step of the carriage.

"Come," he exclaimed, "give me your hand!—lean on my shoulder—there is an open space beyond here."

His fellow-traveller obeyed, silently and steadily. Instinctively Wilton groped his way across what seemed a truck laden with earth and stones, and assisted his companion down the opposite side on to the grass-grown border of the line, which was open, and only fenced by a low bank and hedge. Placing her in safety, he turned to look at the scene of fear and confusion. A few yards ahead lay the massive fragments of the two engines heaped together, the foremost carriage smashed to pieces and already blazing, having caught light from the guard's lamp, which had been overturned. Two other carriages, more or less injured, were, like the one he had just quitted, forced upon trucks laden with stone and clay. The passengers were scrambling over them, the women screaming, the men shouting directions and questions.

"If you will stay here, I will go and see if I can be of any use," exclaimed Wilton. "You are quite safe, and I will return as soon as I can."

She murmured something in reply as he went forward.

CHAPTER II.

Wilton found an indescribable scene of confusion when he came up to the overturned engine. The male passengers and some twenty navvies, who had been with the ballast train, were trying frantically to separate the burning carriages from the others by forcing them back; but, although the coupling irons were broken, the foremost carriages had been so violently dashed against the trucks that they had become too closely entangled to be stirred, and it seemed highly probable that the whole train would be consumed before any means could be devised for extinguishing the flames. Wilton's quick eye took in the difficulty in a moment, and noticed that the blazing van, having been the first to encounter the shock, had fallen on the side away from the ballast train, breaking the couplings and everything breakable as it crashed over. The next carriage had been forced upon the second truck, and the others more or less upon those nearest them, as they were farther from the actual collision. The unhappy guard had been dragged senseless from the débris; there was, therefore, no one to direct the willing but fruitless efforts of the volunteers. Seeing this, Wilton sprang upon the truck nearest him, and shouted, in clear, ringing tones:

"Hold, men! you will never move that wreck! Your only chance to put out the flames is to smother it with the damp clay here. Get your shovels and picks—some of you jump up with the picks and loosen the stuff; another party be ready with the shovels to pile the clay over the fire."

At the first sound of authoritative direction the men sprang to obey, and Wilton took as supreme command as if a party of his own pioneers were at his orders. The men worked with a will, as men generally do when intelligently and energetically commanded. It was a wild and not unpicturesque scene. At first the flames from the dry varnished wood streamed out upon the breeze, which, fortunately, was not high, though it sometimes sent wreaths of smoke and fire against the men who were toiling to extinguish it, and bringing out in strong relief the figure of Wilton, who had climbed upon the side of the carriage nearest the burning fragments, and, holding on with one hand, urged the working party with quick, commanding gestures. By the time the truck had been half emptied the fire was evidently arrested. Every now and then a jet of flame shot up to the sky; a few more minutes of fierce exertion and the enemy was got under, and Wilton descended from his post of observation to find a new authority on the scene, who was bustling about very actively. This was the master of a small station about half a mile farther up