took
leave of them and went off to business. He promised to 'look them up' in
London before very long, probably at Christmas. Between him and Mutimer
there was make-believe of cordiality at parting; they had long ceased to
feel any real interest in each other.

Adela had to spend the time in the railway waiting-room whilst her
husband went to see Yottle. It was a great bare place; when she entered,
she found a woman in mourning, with a little boy, sitting alone. The
child was eating a bun, his mother was silently shedding tears. Adela
seated herself as far from them as possible, out of delicacy, but she
saw the woman look frequently towards her, and at last rise as if
to come and speak. She was a feeble, helpless-looking being of about
thirty; evidently the need of sympathy overcame her, for she had no
other excuse for addressing Adela save to tell that her luggage had gone
astray, and that she was waiting in the hope that something might be
heard of it. Finding a gentle listener, she talked on and on, detailing
the wretched circumstances under which she had recently been widowed,
and her miserable prospects in a strange town whither she was going.
Adela made an effort to speak in words of comfort, but her own voice
sounded hopeless in her ears. In the station was a constant roaring and
hissing, bell-ringing and the shriek of whistles, the heavy trundling of
barrows, the slamming of carriage-doors; everywhere a smell of smoke.
It impressed her as though all the 'world had become homeless, and
had nothing to do but journey hither and thither in vain search of a
resting-place. And her waiting lasted more than an hour. But for the
effort to dry another's tears it would have been hard to restrain her
own.

The morning had threatened rain; when at length the journey to London
began, the black skies yielded a steady downpour Mutimer was anything
but cheerful; establishing himself in a corner of the third-class
carriage, he for a time employed himself with a newspaper; then,
throwing it on to Adela's lap, closed his eyes as if he hoped to sleep.
Adela glanced up and down the barren fields of type, but there was
nothing that could hold her attention, and, by chance looking at her
husband's face, she continued to examine it. Perhaps he was asleep,
perhaps only absorbed in thought. His lips were sullenly loose beneath
the thick reddish moustache his eyebrows had drawn themselves together,
scowling. She could not avert her gaze;