from the other end of the train, her face red with exertion and her
dress disordered. She looked in at the windows, saw Bates, and entered
where Alec had intended to enter, he drawing aside, and she not even
seeing him.

The impetus of his intention carried Alec on to the outer porch of the
car, but his consideration for Bates caused him then to turn his back to
the door, and gaze down the long level track, waiting until Eliza should
come out again.

The prospect that met his gaze was one in which two parallel straight
lines met visibly in the region of somewhere. He remembered learning
that such two lines do, in truth, always meet in infinity. He wondered
drearily if this were a parable. As he saw his life, all that he desired
and all that was right seemed to lie in two tracks, side by side, but
for ever apart.

The advent of Eliza had sunk into less significance in his mind by the
time he heard the engine's warning bell. He turned and looked into the
car. There sat the man whom he had left, but not the same man; a new
existence seemed to have started into life in his thin sinewy frame, and
to be looking out through the weather-beaten visage. This man, fond and
happy, was actually addressing a glance of arch amusement at the girl
who, flushed and disconcerted, sought to busy herself by rearranging his
possessions. So quickly did it seem that Bates had travelled from one
extreme of life to another that Alec felt no doubt as to the kindly
triumph in the eye. Explanation he had none. He stepped off the jolting
car.

"Is she coming out?" he asked the conductor.

"No, she ain't," said a Chellaston man who stood near at hand. "She's
got her trunk in the baggage car, and she's got her ticket for Quebec,
she has. She's left the hotel, and left old Hutchins in the
lurch--that's what she's done."

The train was moving quicker. The conductor had jumped aboard. Alec was
just aware that all who were left on the platform were gossiping about
Eliza's departure when he was suddenly spurred into violent movement by
the recollection that he had absently retained in his possession Bates's
ticket and the change of the note given him to buy it with. To run and
swing himself on to the last car was a piece of vigorous action, but
once again upon the small rear porch and bound perforce for the next
station, he gave only one uncomfortable glance through the glass door
and turned once more to the prospect of the long level track. Who c