Seth Dingwall heard the doctor's comments about Penny not coming out of her room again until they reached Judgement and he held the sudden image of her nude body in the compartment door. He checked around for Harriet and saw she was gabbing with the Bellows woman on the way back to the sleeping car. Stepping onto the platform between the cars, he lit a cigar and leaned on the safety rail pretending to study the coming storm.

When all had passed by and entered their compartments, Seth stole down the aisle and listened nervously at Penny's door. He placed a cautious hand on the handle and felt it give, and then summoning all of his nerve, he thrust it open and slipped inside, quickly closing it behind him.

******

Hannah sat nervously on the edge of Clifford's bunk wringing a handkerchief in her fingers. Clifford stood uncomfortably in the lavatory doorway and fiddled with the buttons on his vest. Without a word they had both slipped unnoticed into his compartment and now had no idea what they had had in mind.

"I was hoping we could talk," Hannah started in a trembly voice.

"Certainly uh... Hannah. Talk is good. What about?"

"Our earlier discussion." She looked down. "You know... about having the courage to take a chance."

Clifford coughed and shifted his position, obviously displeased with the topic. He waved a hand and made to speak but nothing came out then he straightened up and tugged the waist of his vest down tautly.

"Miss Bellows—"

"What happened to, Hannah?"

"Alright then, Hannah." He started again. "Any remarks I made earlier were foolish and in the heat of the moment. Dingwall just seemed to reach a part of me that was vulnerable at that time. I really have no intention of attempting any such action."

Hannah blushed and stared at him with a half smile half terror look on her reddening face. "I didn't mean that, Clifford. I meant- I meant... you and I..."

He frowned and felt his own neck growing hot as her comment dawned on him. "Oh! Oh you mean- you mean us... you and I..." The statement sounded silly and he blushed even more as her smile grew wider and her head bobbed up and down in agreement. Clifford wiped his brow and cleared his throat, taking a seat on the bunk next to Hannah and grasping her hand.

"Miss Bellows, there is nothing I like better than to take a chance with- I uh- I mean not take a chance but take you- I mean not take you but have you... Oh God, help my marble mouth."

"I accept, Clifford," Hannah laughed. "And frankly, any of the aforementioned could be considered." They locked eyes and then lips and the train jerked wildly from a tremendous gust of wind.

Harriet waited for Jean to stop blathering about the men on the train and the inconvenience of having to waste her time on the whole business, and how if she had the chance, she'd either lock the doctor in his room and have her way with him or get off the train and find a way to nearest large town. When she paused, taking time to examine herself in the lavatory mirror, Harriet asked if she was interested in any of the possible money they might receive from the court. Jean shrugged and made an agreeable face.

"Mister Howland allowed as how it could be different sums for different people. I mean, not just because some lost more than one person but their individual circumstances."

Jean leaned against the window and pursed her lips. "I'm not sure I follow."

"Well, take Seth and me. We don't have much outside of some scrawny sheep and a few rocky acres of land and I- we lost a young niece who would have meant a whole lot to us 'cause she was going to come and live with us and help out. I think we'd be more inclined to get a bigger share than say you and your sister. I mean you said yourself you hardly ever saw them or had anything to do with them."

Jean studied her nails silently for a moment. "I'm still not quite sure—"

Harriet sat forward and spoke with intensity. "I think that those who didn't really feel a huge loss shouldn't share in the compensation."

Jean crossed the compartment and checked the door lock then leaned her back against it. "Are you suggesting that if the court awards the families some money that my sister and I should refuse so you can have more?" She studied the serious woman and she pushed away from the door and walked back to the window, turning and laughing brutally at Harriet. "Do you think for one minute I'd consider turning down free money? What gives you the idea that I would be inclined that way at all? Because of what I said earlier? Forget it, Mrs. Dingwall; I might not be in grief over all this but I'm certainly not in a charitable mood either."

Jean went back to the door and opened it, standing aside so Harriet could leave with her anger and mortification carved into the expression on her face.

"No hard feelings, Harriet." Jean's voice followed her down the corridor.

Harriet reached her compartment just as the next door to hers opened and Seth sneaked out. When he saw her gaping at him he turned crimson and anger flared across his face as shut the door and hurried her inside their own room.

"What were you—?"

"Don't say a damn word, woman." Seth checked his face in the mirror, poking gently at a red area over his left eye.

"I most certainly will!" Harriet grabbed his arm and spun him around. "You will tell me what yo—"

Seth backhanded her so hard Harriet flew back onto the bunk and cracked her head on the wall.

"I told you to shut up! What I do is none of your business; it's what I'll do to you if you ain't careful."

Harriet stifled her sobs and massaged the back of her head and the side of her mouth, which she felt was beginning to swell. She watched him, frightened, as he opened a large bottle of liquor and began to swallow it in large gulps. Harriet couldn't believe that Penny Hatcher would have allowed a beast like her husband to join her in her room; her thoughts ran to a kaleidoscope of sordid happenings and she wondered if the young actress was all right.

Seth finished the bottle and stumbled against the wall, knocking the bottle from his hand and sliding down, vacant-eyed. He muttered a bunch of slurred sounds, one finger trying to point to Harriet and then he toppled sideways, unconscious.

She stepped over him and ran cold water on a cloth, pressing it to the side of her face then she inhaled deeply and made her decision.

Ryan knocked on each of the doors on the way down the corridor, checking on the occupants and finding that nobody seemed to be where they were supposed to be aside from a withdrawn Penny Hatcher, and the Dingwalls who simply called back that all was fine, and Cybil Marsh, who happily opened her door and invited him in.

"You're a stubborn one, ain't you?"

"A reporter has to be, Marshal. Never get the story by being timid." She stepped back and waited.

"No story to get, Miss Marsh." Ryan tipped his hat and headed back out of the car.

Cybil leaned out and watched him go, her head leaning dreamily on the door. "There could be, Marshal. There could be." She murmured.