The fact that she was not a young woman, and that he had seen her dark hair finely threaded with gray, made no difference with him in his peculiarly chivalric conception of man's attitude toward woman.

He did not mean to impress himself upon her; this time he merely wanted to see whether she had roused herself, or had left the car.

At least this was the trend of his mental argument as he entered the third coach.
The car was empty.

The woman was gone.

Even the old man who had hobbled in on crutches at the last station had hobbled out again in response to the clanging bells.