A moment later, Jennie, who had again risen to her feet, horrified to learn that, after all, the messenger had come, heard the door of his room click.

Everything was silent save the purring murmur of the swiftly moving train.

She stood there for a few moments tense with excitement, then bethought herself of the hole between her present compartment and the one she had recently left.

She sprang up on the seat, and placing her eye with some caution at the hole, peered through.

First she thought the compartment was empty, then noticed there had been placed at the end by the window a huge cylinder that reached nearly to the ceiling of the room.