The Bishop's purse

A near-sighted German music teacher crossed his legs at an inopportune moment, and this trivial action led directly to the startling incidents of the following narrative, with their momentous effects upon several lives.

This singular occurrence took place on a railway train in England, a boat train with passengers from Paris, three of these, a strangely assorted trio, being brought together by fate within the respectable cushioned walls of a first-class carriage. On one side sat an English bishop, in formal black garments, talking with evident interest and a certain deference to a very pretty and smartly dressed American girl, whose fresh views and charming lack of reverence seemed to delight the rather heavy-minded but well-meaning prelate.

Small wonder that the ecclesiastical gaze was held in rapt attention, for Miss Betty Thompson (of New York and recently of Paris) was not only fair to look upon with her teasing blue eyes, her long curling lashes, her auburn hair shot through with golden lights and her adorable mouth upturned at the corners, but she added to these the fatal gift of unexpectedness. So the bishop looked and listened and marveled, while the tired lines faded from his face and he reflected that, after all, the ride from Dover to London was very short, amazingly short.

The other one of this trio, whose meeting here was to have such far-reaching consequences, was a quietly attired young woman, traveling alone, her black hair and warm ivory coloring seeming to indicate a Latin origin. She, too, was a girl of striking beauty, but there was something of sadness and yearning in the depths of her lustrous dark eyes. As if weary with the journey, she dozed from time to time or seemed to doze, her thick lashes lifting occasionally for a languid glance at her companions and then drooping again, while a faint, half-wistful smile played about her full red lips.

"An interesting face," whispered the bishop to his young friend. "A singularly interesting face. Wouldn't you say so, Miss Thompson?"

Betty studied the sleeping girl a moment and nodded thoughtfully. "A sort of wild beauty. I've been looking at her and wondering if--" She paused in perplexity.

"You think she is a fellow countrywoman?" suggested the bishop.

"I'm not sure, but--I think she's unhappy and--" as the stranger stirred uneasily, "did you ever see anything so deliciously green as these hedges?"

The dark-eyed girl was far away in her reveries, living over again fragments of her life that seemed to flash by in lurid memory pictures, just as this rushing English landscape flashed before her half-closed eyes.

Now ... the great halls of Monte Carlo, hushed groups around green-covered tables, worshiping groups, one would say, with tense, eager faces--and the clink of gold. Stupid people! Bound to lose their money anyway, so--what did it matter?

Now ... the blue of the moon-kissed Mediterranean and a sighing orchestra playing on the marble terrace. And that most ridiculously careless South American general with his gold cigarette case! Fancy having real rubies and emeralds set in a cigarette case! What did the man expect?

Now ... the pigeons at Mentone, circling in frightened sweep over the lazy gardens while a Russian countess suns herself by the beds of chrysanthemums. What a fool to carry all that jewelry in a handbag!

Now ... Paris, a nice enough town and they could have it. All very fine driving in the bois and sipping tea at the Continental, but American secret service men were nosing about and--it's a pity if a girl can't speak a friendly word to an old lady from Grand Rapids, Michigan, without getting called down for it. Time to move on, Hester Storm, especially as you have eight hundred dollars in good coin tucked away and the jewelry. So one ticket, please, to Manhattan Island, for a girl who is going home and--wants to look her sister Rosalie in the eyes and--is just a little sorry for certain things and--anyhow, she's going to keep straight, yes, straight for the rest of her natural life.