ried Me."

With that expression of opinion the station-master wheeled to the right,
and intrenched himself impregnably in the stronghold of his own office.

The citizens of Thorpe Ambrose looked at the closed door, and gravely
shook their heads. Mr. Mack had disappointed them. No opinion which
openly recognizes the frailty of human nature is ever a popular opinion
with mankind. "It's as good as saying that any of _us_ might have
married her if _we_ had been Mr. Armadale's age!" Such was the general
impression on the minds of the conclave, when the meeting had been
adjourned, and the members were leaving the station.

The last of the party to go was a slow old gentleman, with a habit of
deliberately looking about him. Pausing at the door, this observant
person stared up the platform and down the platform, and discovered in
the latter direction, standing behind an angle of the wall, an elderly
man in black, who had escaped the notice of everybody up to that time.
"Why, bless my soul!" said the old gentleman, advancing inquisitively by
a step at a time, "it can't be Mr. Bashwood!"

It _was_ Mr. Bashwood--Mr. Bashwood, whose constitutional curiosity
had taken him privately to the station, bent on solving the mystery of
Allan's sudden journey to London--Mr. Bashwood, who had seen and heard,
behind his angle in the wall, what everybody else had seen and heard,
and who appeared to have been impressed by it in no ordinary way. He
stood stiffly against the wall, like a man petrified, with one hand
pressed on his bare head, and the other holding his hat--he stood, with
a dull flush on his face, and a dull stare in his eyes, looking straight
into the black depths of the tunnel outside the station, as if the train
to London had disappeared in it but the moment before.

"Is your head bad?" asked the old gentleman. "Take my advice. Go home
and lie down."

Mr. Bashwood listened mechanically, with his usual attention, and
answered mechanically, with his usual politeness.

"Yes, sir," he said, in a low, lost tone, like a man between dreaming
and waking; "I'll go home and lie down."

"That's right," rejoined the old gentleman, making for the door. "And
take a pill, Mr. Bashwood--take a pill."

Five minutes later, the porter charged with the business of locking up
the station found Mr. Bashwood, still standing bare-headed against the
wall, and still looking straight into the black depths of the tunnel, as
if the train to London