nding the path
again, and with some sense of pleasure halted awhile against the rails,
to listen to the intensely melancholy yet musical wail of the fir-tops,
and as the wind passed on, the prompt moan of an adjacent plantation in
reply. He could just dimly discern the airy summits of the two or
three trees nearest him waving restlessly backwards and forwards, and
stretching out their boughs like hairy arms into the dull sky. The
scene, from its striking and emphatic loneliness, began to grow
congenial to his mood; all of human kind seemed at the antipodes.

A sudden rattle on his right hand caused him to start from his reverie,
and turn in that direction. There, before him, he saw rise up from among
the trees a fountain of sparks and smoke, then a red glare of light
coming forward towards him; then a flashing panorama of illuminated
oblong pictures; then the old darkness, more impressive than ever.

The surprise, which had owed its origin to his imperfect acquaintance
with the topographical features of that end of the estate, had been but
momentary; the disturbance, a well-known one to dwellers by a railway,
being caused by the 6.50 down-train passing along a shallow cutting
in the midst of the wood immediately below where he stood, the driver
having the fire-door of the engine open at the minute of going by. The
train had, when passing him, already considerably slackened speed, and
now a whistle was heard, announcing that Carriford Road Station was not
far in its van.

But contrary to the natural order of things, the discovery that it
was only a commonplace train had not caused Manston to stir from his
position of facing the railway.

If the 6.50 down-train had been a flash of forked lightning transfixing
him to the earth, he could scarcely have remained in a more trance-like
state. He still leant against the railings, his right hand still
continued pressing on his walking-stick, his weight on one foot, his
other heel raised, his eyes wide open towards the blackness of the
cutting. The only movement in him was a slight dropping of the lower
jaw, separating his previously closed lips a little way, as when a
strange conviction rushes home suddenly upon a man. A new surprise, not
nearly so trivial as the first, had taken possession of him.

It was on this account. At one of the illuminated windows of a
second-class carriage in the series gone by, he had seen a pale face,
reclining upon one hand, the light from the l