The midnight train emerged from the gloom of the station, passed through the outskirts of Ellerton, detached rows of dark dwellings, by the grounds of the Baseball Association, its fence still plastered with the gaudy circus posters, into the dim fields and shining streams. Anthony stood on the last, swinging platform, gazing back at the gloom that enveloped Ellerton, at the place where Hydrangea House was hid by the hills. An acute misery possessed him--the unsettled maimer of his departure from Eliza, her silence, struggled in his thoughts with the attempt to realize the necessity of the course he had adopted to bring about a final and lasting joy. He wondered if Eliza would understand the need for his going; but, assured of her wise sympathy, he felt that she would; and a measure of content settled upon him. The engine swung about a curve, disappearing into the obscurity of a wood. “Eliza,” he cried aloud, “Eliza, be here when I come back to you!”
He sat for the greater part of an hour on the deserted platform of the junction, where signal lamps glistened on the steel rails that vanished into the night, into the west, the inscrutable future. The headlight of the massive locomotive flared unexpectedly, whitely upon him; the engine, with a brief glimpse of a sanguinary heart of fire illuminating a sooty human countenance, gleaming, liquid eyeballs, passed and stopped; and Anthony hastily mounted the train. He made his way through the narrow passage of buttoned, red curtains, and found his berth, when he sank into a weary, dreamless sleep.
IN the morning his was the last berth made up for the day; the car, shaded against the sun, was rolling slightly, and he braced himself as he made his way toward breakfast. The tables were all occupied; but, at a carelessly hospitable nod, he found a place with two men. They were, he immediately saw, Jews. One was robustly middle aged, with a pinkly smooth countenance, a slightly flattened nose, and eyes as colorless as clear water in a goblet. He was carefully dressed in shepherd's plaid, with a gay tie that held a noticeably fine pearl. His companion was thin and dark, with a heavy nose irritated to rawness by the constant application of a blue silk handkerchief. The latter, Anthony discovered in the course of the commonplaces which followed, was sycophant and henchman of the first--a never failing source of applause for the former's witticisms.