"Isn't it confiding of me to trust myself alone in a carriage with you--after what has happened? But I am not in the least afraid. I am sure you won't care to repeat your experiment to-night. And I shall find it so amusing to sit and watch you, and see what is passing through your mind; because, do you know, it will all be just as plain to me as if you said everything aloud."
While crediting the stranger with unusual perceptive powers, Rodney doubted if in his assertion he did not go too far. If he had the dimmest insight into the tangled network of thought with which the young man's brain was filled, then he was a marvel indeed. Elmore, leaning back in his seat, remained perfectly still, with his face towards the window, to all outward seeming as oblivious of the other's presence and occasional remarks as if he were not there. When they reached Croydon a person approached the carriage window whom the stranger plainly recognised; a pleasant-faced, brown-skinned and brown-haired young man with a slight moustache, with something in his bearing and expression which suggested reserve. Coming into the carriage, he said to the stranger, as he sat beside him, half smilingly, half chidingly:
"So it is you, is it? I hope you've enjoyed your little trip."
The stranger seemed to regard his coming with an air of not altogether pleased surprise.
"One has to be a little that way if one is responsible for you."
The new-comer's good-humoured curtness seemed to disturb the stranger's equilibrium.
"Responsible for me, indeed! Upon my word, you are the most extraordinary man."
In his own fashion the stranger introduced the new-comer to Rodney.
"This is Dr. Emmett, my medical attendant. I left him behind me in Brighton because I am sick and tired of his society; yet here he is at Croydon before I am. How he does these things I do not understand. He's a most extraordinary man."
Then, also after his own fashion, he made Rodney known to the new-comer.
"Emmett, this is a valued friend of mine, whom I have met for the first time to-night. I know all about him, except his voice; and, do you know, he's never spoken once."
Rodney, observing the new-comer, perceived, from something which was in the glance he gave him in exchange for his, that the position had altered. Rising, he moved out of the carriage, still without a word. The stranger made as if to follow him, but the doctor put out a detaining hand. The train started just as Rodney, having gained the platform, was closing the door. The last he saw of the interior of the compartment was that the stranger seemed to be warmly expostulating with his medical attendant. At Redhill Rodney had got into the front part of the train--which was for London Bridge--because he felt that between the City and Notting Hill he might have an opportunity of shaking the stranger off. Now, as the London Bridge coaches glided out of the station, he passed to the Victoria half of the train, which awaited an engine, lower down the platform. The doctor's fortuitous arrival on the scene had saved him, at least temporarily, from what might have been a serious predicament.