"Why are we stopping?" she asked. "Have we run into something?"
The guard looked up irritably. Then, seeing the charming face bent above him, he softened visibly. Beauty may be only skin deep, but it has an amazing faculty for smoothing the path of its possessor.
"Pretty near, miss. There's a great piece of timber across the line. Luckily the driver saw it and just pulled up in time, and a miss is as good as a mile, isn't it?"
"How horrible!" ejaculated Nan. "Who d'you think put it there?"
"One of they Bolshies, I expect. We've got more of them in England than we've any need for."
"Well, it'll take a bit of time, miss. Whoever did, the job did it thoroughly, and even when we get clear we'll have to go slow and keep a sharp look-out."
"Then I shall miss my connection at Exeter--on to Abbencombe by the South-Western?"
"It's better than missing a limb or two, or your life, maybe," observed the guard with rebuke in his tones.
And the guard, with a beaming smile, moved off to the other end of the train, administering philosophic consolation to the disturbed passengers on his way.
It was over half-an-hour before the obstruction on the line was removed and the train enabled to steam ahead once more.
Nan, strung up by the realisation of how close she had been to probable death, found herself unable to continue reading and gazed out of the window, wondering in a desultory fashion how long she would have to wait at St. David's before the next train ran to Abbencombe. It was impossible now for her to catch the one she had originally proposed to take. She was faintly disquieted, too, by the fact that she could not precisely recollect noticing any later train quoted in the time-table.
The train proceeded at a cautious pace and finally pulled into St. David's an hour late. Nan jumped out and made enquiry of a porter, only to learn that her suspicions were true. There was no later train to Abbencombe that day!
Rather shaken by the misadventures of the journey, she felt as though she could have screamed at the placidly good-natured porter: "But there must be! There _must_ be another train!" Instead, she turned hopelessly away from him, and found herself face to face with Peter Mallory.
"In trouble again?" he asked, catching sight of her face.