CHAPTER I.
A fast train drew into Albany, on the New York Central, from the West.
It was three-thirty of a chill March morning in the first year of peace.
A pall of fog lay over the world so heavy that it beaded the face and hands and deposited a fairy diamond dust upon wool.

The station lights had the visibility of stars, and like the stars were without refulgence--a pale golden aureola, perhaps three feet in diameter, and beyond, nothing.

The few passengers who alighted and the train itself had the same nebulosity of drab fish in a dim aquarium.
Among the passengers to detrain was a man in a long black coat.

The high collar was up.

The man wore a derby hat, well down upon his head, after the English mode.