“Ah,” Westray said, paying little attention, for he was engaged in a new mental disputation as to whether he was really justified in travelling first-class. He had just settled that at such a life-crisis as he had now reached, it was necessary that the body should be spared fatigue in order that the mind might be as vigorous as possible for dealing with a difficult situation, and that the extra expense was therefore justified; when the stationmaster went on:
“Yes, I wrote a ticket, just as I might for you, for Lord Blandamer not a month ago. Perhaps you know Lord Blandamer?” he added venturously; yet with a suggestion that even the sodality of first-class travelling was not in itself a passport to so distinguished an acquaintance. The mention of Lord Blandamer’s name gave a galvanic shock to Westray’s flagging attention.
“Oh yes,” he said, “I know Lord Blandamer.”
“Do you, indeed, sir”—and respect had risen by a skip greater than any allowed in counterpoint. “Well, I wrote a ticket for his lordship by this very train not a month ago; no, it was not a month ago, for ’twas the very night the poor organist at Cullerne was took.”
“Yes,” said the would-be indifferent Westray; “where did Lord Blandamer come from?”
“I do not know,” the stationmaster replied—“I do not know, sir,” he repeated, with the unnecessary emphasis common to the uneducated or unintelligent.
“Was he driving?”
“No, he walked up to this station just as you might yourself. Excuse me, sir,” he broke off; “here she comes.”
They heard the distant thunder of the approaching train, and were in time to see the gates of the level-crossing at the end of the platform swing silently open as if by ghostly hands, till their red lanterns blocked the Cullerne Road.
No one got out, and no one but Westray got in; there was some interchanging of post-office bags in the fog, and then the stationmaster-booking-clerk-porter waved a lamp, and the train steamed away. Westray found himself in a cavernous carriage, of which the cloth seats were cold and damp as the lining of a coffin. He turned up the collar of his coat, folded his arms in a Napoleonic attitude, and threw himself back into a corner to think. It was curious—it was very curious. He had been under the impression that Lord Blandamer had left Cullerne early on the night of poor Sharnall’s accident; Lord Blandamer had told them at Bellevue Lodge that he was going away by the afternoon train when he left them. Yet here he was at Cullerne Road at midnight, and if he had not come from Cullerne, whence had he come? He could not have come from Fording, for from Fording he would certainly have taken the train at Lytchett. It was curious, and while he was so thinking he fell asleep.
XVI
A day or two later Miss Joliffe said to Anastasia:
“I think you had a letter from Mr. Westray this morning, my dear, had you not? Did he say anything about his return? Did he say when he was coming back?”
“No, dear aunt, he said nothing about coming back. He only wrote a few lines on a matter of business.”
“Oh yes, just so,” Miss Joliffe said dryly, feeling a little hurt at what seemed like any lack of confidence on her niece’s part.
Miss Joliffe would have said that she knew Anastasia’s mind so well that no secrets were hid from her. Anastasia would have said that her aunt knew everything except a few little secrets, and, as a matter of fact, the one perhaps knew as much of the other as it is expedient that age should know of youth. “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell.” Of all earthly consolations this is the greatest, that the mind is its own place. The mind is an impregnable fortress which can be held against all comers, the mind is a sanctuary open day or night to the pursued, the mind is a flowery pleasance where shade refreshes even in summer droughts. To some trusted friend we try to give the clue of the labyrinth, but the ball of silk is too short to guide any but ourselves along all the way. There are sunny mountain-tops, there are innocent green arbours, or closes of too highly-perfumed flowers, or dank dungeons of despair, or guilty mycethmi black as night, where we walk alone, whither we may lead no one with us by the hand.
Miss Euphemia Joliffe would have liked to ignore altogether the matter of Westray’s letter, and to have made no further remarks thereon; but curiosity is in woman a stronger influence than pride, and curiosity drove her to recur to the letter.
“Thank you, my dear, for explaining about it. I am sure you will tell me if there are any messages for me in it.”
“No, there was no message at all for you, I think,” said Anastasia. “I will get it for you by-and-by, and you shall see all he says;” and with that she left the room as if to fetch the letter. It was only a subterfuge, for she felt Westray’s correspondence burning a hole in her pocket all the while; but she was anxious that her aunt should not see the letter until an answer to it had been posted; and hoped that if she once escaped from the room, the matter would drop out of memory. Miss Joliffe fired a parting shot to try to bring her niece to her bearings as she was going out:
“I do not know, my dear, that I should encourage any correspondence from Mr. Westray, if I were you. It would be more seemly, perhaps, that he should write to me on
