As they ran into Tilbury Station a train was standing at the departure platform. The General beckoned to a porter.
"Do you know if the _Sutlej_ has sailed?"
"Yes, sir--sailed at ten minutes to twelve. Might catch her at Southampton, sir, perhaps. There's a good many people as well as you disappointed in this 'ere train. There's another train back in three minutes."
The General went to the door of the carriage and looked out; then retired hastily. He had caught sight of Grogan and Mrs. Grogan and a number of boys and girls of all ages. Not for worlds would he have let Grogan see him. The amazement at seeing him, the questions about his presence there, Grogan's laugh, Grogan's slap on the back, would be more than the General could bear at this moment.
"I shall wait for the next train," he said to the astonished porter. The porter had not thought of Tilbury as a place where the casual visitor desired to wait for three hours.
The General remained in the train till the other had steamed out of the station. When all danger was over he alighted and walked to the hotel of many partings. He ordered his lunch, a chop and a vegetable, biscuits and cheese. While his chop was cooking he would stretch his legs, cramped by that long time in the train.
He walked along the docks, dodging lorries and waggons, getting out at the side of a basin, with a clear walk along its edge. It was empty--the _Sutlej_ had left it only three-quarters of an hour ago. He paced up and down by the grey water, lost in thought.
The _Sutlej_ had sailed, ten minutes before the time anticipated. God had given him the sign. He had turned him from his presumptuous attempt to be Providence to his Nelly. The General never had been, never could be, passive. He was made for the activities of life. Yet his religious ideal was passivity--to be in the hands of God expecting, accepting, His Will for all things. It was an ideal he had never attained to, and it was, perhaps, therefore the dearer.
He was oblivious of the cold, of the creeping water, of the thickening flakes in the air which nearly blotted out the silent ship the other side of the basin. He saw nothing but the pointing Finger, the Finger that pointed away from the course he had marked out for himself. He felt uplifted, glad, as one who has escaped a great peril. Was his Nelly to suffer the torture of an engagement to a man who would presently be every hour in danger of a horrible death? Was she, poor child, to suffer like Mrs. Sayers? like poor old Mrs. Mordaunt? No. She must be saved from the possibility of that.