he quickly
lessening rumble of its departure is all that remains of this vision of
man's activity and ceaseless expectancy. When it is quite gone and all
is quiet, a sigh falls from the man's lips and he moves on, but this
time, for some unexplainable reason, in the direction of the station.
With lowered head he passes along, noting little till he arrives within
sight of the depot where some freight is being handled, and a trunk
or two wheeled down the platform. No sight could be more ordinary or
unsuggestive, but it has its attraction for him, for he looks up as he
goes by and follows the passage of that truck down the platform till it
has reached the corner and disappeared. Then he sighs again and again
moves on.

A cluster of houses, one of them open and lighted, was all which lay
between him now and the country road. He was hurrying past, for his step
had unconsciously quickened as he turned his back upon the station, when
he was seized again by that mood of curiosity and stepped up to the door
from which a light issued and looked in. A common eating-room lay before
him, with rudely spread tables and one very sleepy waiter taking orders
from a new arrival who sat with his back to the door. Why did the lonely
man on the sidewalk start as his eye fell on the latter's commonplace
figure, a hungry man demanding breakfast in a cheap, country restaurant?
His own physique was powerful while that of the other looked slim and
frail. But fear was in the air, and the brooding of a tempest affects
some temperaments in a totally unexpected manner. As the man inside
turns slightly and looks up, the master figure on the sidewalk vanishes,
and his step, if any one had been interested enough to listen, rings
with a new note as it turns into the country road it has at last
reached.

But no one heeded. The new arrival munches his roll and waits
impatiently for his coffee, while without, the clouds pile soundlessly
in the sky, one of them taking the form of a huge hand with clutching
fingers reaching down into the hollow void beneath.

XLII. AT SIX

Mr. Challoner had been honest in his statement regarding the departure
of Sweetwater. He had not only paid and dismissed our young detective,
but he had seen him take the train for New York. And Sweetwater had gone
away in good faith, too, possibly with his convictions undisturbed, but
acknowledging at last that he had reached the end of his resources. But
the brain does not lo