The pundit still had his eye on our friend when the shriek and the whirr of the express from the north was heard. Lopez walked quickly up towards the edge of the platform, when the pundit followed him, telling him that this was not his train. Lopez then ran a few yards along the platform, not noticing the man, reaching a spot that was unoccupied;—and there he stood fixed. And as he stood the express flashed by. “I am fond of seeing them pass like that,” said Lopez to the man who had followed him.
“But you shouldn’t do it, sir,” said the suspicious pundit. “No one isn’t allowed to stand near like that. The very hair of it might take you off your legs when you’re not used to it.”
“All right, old fellow,” said Lopez, retreating. The next train was the Liverpool train; and it seemed that our friend’s friend had not come, for when the Liverpool passengers had cleared themselves off, he was still walking up and down the platform. “He’ll come by the next,” said Lopez to the pundit, who now followed him about and kept an eye on him.
“There ain’t another from Liverpool stopping here till the 2:20,” said the pundit. “You had better come again if you mean to meet him by that.”
“He has come on part of the way, and will reach this by some other train,” said Lopez.
“There ain’t nothing he can come by,” said the pundit. “Gentlemen can’t wait here all day, sir. The horders is against waiting on the platform.”
“All right,” said Lopez, moving away as though to make his exit through the station.
Now Tenway Junction is so big a place, and so scattered, that it is impossible that all the pundits should by any combined activity maintain to the letter that order of which our special pundit had spoken. Lopez, departing from the platform which he had hitherto occupied, was soon to be seen on another, walking up and down, and again waiting. But the old pundit had had his eye upon him, and had followed him round. At that moment there came a shriek louder than all the other shrieks, and the morning express down from Euston to Inverness was seen coming round the curve at a thousand miles an hour. Lopez turned round and looked at it, and again walked towards the edge of the platform. But now it was not exactly the edge that he neared, but a descent to a pathway—an inclined plane leading down to the level of the rails, and made there for certain purposes of traffic. As he did so the pundit called to him, and then made a rush at him—for our friend’s back was turned to the coming train. But Lopez heeded not the call, and the rush was too late. With quick, but still with gentle and apparently unhurried steps, he walked down before the flying engine—and in a moment had been knocked into bloody atoms.
LXI
The Widow and Her Friends
The catastrophe described in the last chapter had taken place during the first week in March. By the end of that month old Mr. Wharton had probably reconciled himself to the tragedy, although in fact it had affected him very deeply. In the first days after the news had reached him he seemed to be bowed to the ground. Stone Buildings were neglected, and the Eldon saw nothing of him. Indeed, he barely left the house from which he had been so long banished by the presence of his son-in-law. It seemed to Everett, who now came to live with him and his sister, as though his father were overcome by the horror of the affair. But after awhile he recovered himself, and appeared one morning in court with his wig and gown, and argued a case—which was now unusual with him—as though to show the world that a dreadful episode in his life was passed, and should be thought of no more. At this period, three or four weeks after the occurrence—he rarely spoke to his daughter about Lopez; but to Everett the man’s name would be often on his tongue. “I do not know that there could have been any other deliverance,” he said to his son one day. “I thought it would have killed me when I first heard it, and it nearly killed her. But, at any rate, now there is peace.”
But the widow seemed to feel it more as time went on. At first she was stunned, and for a while absolutely senseless. It was not till two days after the occurrence that the fact became known to her—nor known as a certainty to her father and brother. It seemed as though the man had been careful to carry with him no record of identity, the nature of which would permit it to outlive the crash of the train. No card was found, no scrap of paper with his name; and it was discovered at last that when he left the house on the fatal morning he had been careful to dress himself in shirt and socks, with handkerchief and collar that had been newly purchased for his proposed journey and which bore no mark. The fragments of his body set identity at defiance, and even his watch had been crumpled into ashes. Of course the fact became certain with no great delay.
