But he stopped short. Carroll stirred, stretched himself, his eyes were half open: evidently his waking was a pleasant one. But suddenly the unfamiliar aspect of the room attracted his attention: he looked eagerly round, a shadow swept across his face, and he turned and saw Hardwicke. "It's true!" he said, and flung out his arms in a paroxysm of despair.
Harry walked to the window and leant out. Presently a voice behind him asked, "Have you been to the farm, Mr. Hardwicke?"
"Yes," said Harry. "But there is no news. She passed a tolerably quiet night: there is no change."
"I've been asleep," said Archie after a pause. "I never thought I should sleep." He looked ashamed of having done so.
"It would have been strange if you hadn't: you were worn out."
"My watch has run down," the other continued. "What is the time?"
"Twenty minutes past seven. I want to speak to you, Carroll. I think you had better go home."
"No. Really home, to your own people. You can write to your cousin. You don't want to go back to him?"
Archie shook his head. Then a sudden sense of injustice to Fothergill prompted him to say, "Ray was never hard on me before."
"You mustn't think about that," Hardwicke replied. "People don't weigh their words at such times. But, Carroll, you can do nothing here--less than nothing. You'll be better away. Give me your address, and I'll write any news there is. Look sharp now, and you can go into Fordborough with me and catch the up train."
As they drove through the green lanes, along which they had passed the day before, Archie looked right and left, recalling the incidents of that earlier drive. Already he was better, possessing his sorrow with greater keenness and fulness than at first, but not so miserably possessed by it. Hardly a word was spoken till they stood on the platform and a far-off puff of white showed the coming train. Then he said, "I shall never forget your kindness, Mr. Hardwicke. If ever there's anything I can do--"
Hardwicke answered "Yes." He knew too well _what_ it was he promised to write to say a word more.
It was a relief to him when Carroll was gone and he could pace the platform and watch for the London train. He looked through the open doorway, and saw his dog-cart waiting in the road and the horse tossing his head impatiently in the sunshine. Through all his anxiety--or rather side by side with his anxiety--he was conscious of a current of interest in all manner of trivial things. He thought of the price he had given for the horse five months before, and of Latimer's opinion of his bargain. He noticed the station-master in the distance, and remembered that some one had said he drank. He watched a row of small birds sitting on the telegraph-wires just outside the station, and all at once the London train came gliding rapidly and unexpectedly out of the cutting close by, and was there.