CHAPTER II.
FELLOW-TRAVELLERS "Look sharp, miss, jump in! Luggage in the rear van." The porter hoisted her almost bodily up the steps of the railway carriage, slamming the door behind her, the guard's whistle shrieked, and an instant later the train started with a jerk that sent Diana staggering against the seat of the compartment, upon which she finally subsided, breathless but triumphant.
She had very nearly missed the train.

An organised procession of some kind had been passing through the streets just as she was driving to the station, and her taxi had been held up for the full ten minutes' grace which she had allowed herself, the metre fairly ticking its heart out in impotent rage behind the policeman's uplifted hand.
So it was with a sigh of relief that she found herself at last comfortably installed in a corner seat of a first-class carriage.

She glanced about her to make sure that she had not mislaid any of her hand baggage in her frantic haste, and this point being settled to her satisfaction, she proceeded to take stock of her fellow-traveller, for there was one other person in the compartment besides herself.
He was sitting in the corner furthest away, his back to the engine, apparently entirely oblivious of her presence.

On his knee rested a quarto writing-pad, and he appeared so much absorbed in what he was writing that Diana doubted whether he had even heard the commotion, occasioned by her sudden entry.
But she was mistaken.

As the porter had bundled her into the carriage, the man in the corner had raised a pair of deep-set blue eyes, looked at her for a moment with a half-startled glance, and then, with the barest flicker of a smile, had let his eyes drop once more upon his writing-pad.
Then he crossed out the word "Kismet," which he had inadvertently written.
Diana regarded him with interest.