The Vestibule Limited Mystery — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

wee TS. eS a re os > gl - 29 THE VESTIBULE LIMITED MYSTERY. have supposed it is the young man’s father who is back of my employer, but the idea occurs to me that this same woman dressed as a nun may have something to do with the matter. Acton has told me there is a million at stake, and if such is the case, these confidence people will naturally exert themselves as never before—it will be the supreme effort of their lives. As the victim is blinded and dazzled by the olamour that is upon him, he may naturally be ex- pected to side with his enemies, unless his eyes are opened by some astonishing process, so that he may see the truth exactly as it appears. Philadelphia is reached after twelve o’clock. The one seat vacant in our car, opposite the two English sportsmen, is occupied here by a thin-faced woman with corkscrew curls, whom I take to be an old maid. A glance at her traveling satchel reveals the fact that she is the principal of a young ladies’ academy out in Illinois. I consider her my beau ideal of a school marm—prim, sagacious, and stern. Again the Vestibule Limited starts out, now to head for Harrisburgh upon the Susquehanna, and through the gates of the river into the heart of the Alleghenies. Young Hammond comes over to his seat and opens his satchel to get something out. I notice that he seems very unlike a man in his proper senses, and wonder whether these plotters have drugged him in any way. It may be only the stag- gering effects of his fascination that I witness; but I never saw a plainer case of the enchantment of a Circe than this. I reflect with rather grim satisfac- tion, that there has been a day in New England when they tied a witch to the stake for just such -'comicbooks co