The Craze of Christina — page 178: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

174 The Craze of Christina. CHAPTER XVI. Ir was not an express train, and a train that is not express on a French railway is the slow- est conveyance conceivable. This one stopped at every single station, and wherever it stopped it waited. What it waited for Clifford could not imagine; sometimes it seemed it was for some faster train to pass it by, sometimes it appeared to be shunted indefinitely, sometimes again the only reason for the long pause at wayside stations appeared to be that the guard and the station master might exchange long private confidences with one another. Amiens, however, was reached at last, rather late in the afternoon, and the town lamps were all alight when Clifford’s cab brought him to the Hotel de la Couronne. He descended quickly, paid the cochér, and inquired eagerly for Miss Pratt. The burly landlord, who met him at the door, shrugged his shoulders and extended his fat hands with a deprecating smile. *‘Ah, m’sieur, je suis desolé! Oette dame est Gcomichb (0\(0) ks (e(e)