She advanced limply as though towed by him with no will power of her own, as though she were walking in her sleep.

A voice was singing with diabolic satisfaction in the captain's brain: "Now it is ripe!...

Now it is ripe!..." And he continued pulling her along always in a direct line, not knowing whither he was going, but sure of his triumph.
Near the station an old man approached the pair,--a white-haired, respectable gentleman with an old jacket and spectacles.

He gave them the card of a hotel which he owned in the neighborhood, boasting of the good qualities of its rooms.

"Every modern comfort....