Meanwhile Mr. Quest was standing on the wet and desolate platform quite away from the lamps, watching the white lights of the approaching train rushing on through the storm and night. Presently it drew up. No passengers got out.
“Now, mam, look sharp if you’re going,” cried the porter, and the woman Edith came out of the refreshment room.
“There’s the third, forrard there,” said the porter, running to the van to see about the packing of the mails.
On she came, passing quite close to Mr. Quest, so close that he could hear her swearing at the incivility of the porter. There was a third-class compartment just opposite, and this she entered. It was one of those carriages that are still often to be seen on provincial lines in which the partitions do not go up to the roof, and, if possible, more vilely lighted than usual. Indeed the light which should have illuminated the after-half of it had either never been lit or had gone out. There was not a soul in the whole length of the compartment.
As soon as his wife was in, Mr. Quest watched his opportunity. Slipping up to the dark carriage, he opened and shut the door as quietly as possible and took his seat in the gloom.
The engine whistled, there was a cry of “right forrard,” and they were off.
Presently he saw the woman stand up in her division of the compartment and peep over into the gloom.
“Not a blessed soul,” he heard her mutter, “and yet I feel as though that devil Billy was creeping about after me. Ugh! it must be the horrors. I can see the look he gave me now.”
A few minutes later the train stopped at a station, but nobody got in, and presently it moved on again. “Any passengers for Effry?” shouted the porter, and there had been no response. If they did not stop at Effry there would be no halt for forty minutes. Now was his time. He waited a little till they had got up the speed. The line here ran through miles and miles of fen country, more or less drained by dykes and rivers, but still wild and desolate enough. Over this great flat the storm was sweeping furiously—even drowning in its turmoil the noise of the travelling train.
Very quietly he rose and climbed over the low partition which separated his compartment from that in which the woman was. She was seated in the corner, her head leaning back, so that the feeble light from the lamp fell on it, and her eyes were closed. She was asleep.