gely, hopelessly. It was
as if a doom had closed inevitably over me. But if my thoughts had
been legible and I had been asked to explain this attitude of mine
towards a person who had never spoken to me, whom I had seen but
thrice, and whose identity was utterly unknown, I could not have done
so. I had no reasons. It was intuition.

Abruptly I straightened myself, and surveying the men and the
background of ruin lighted by the fitful gleams of lanterns and the
pale glitter of a moon half-hidden by flying clouds, I shouted out:

"I want a cab. I have to catch the Calais boat. Will somebody please
direct me!"

No one appeared even to hear me. The mental phenomena which accompany
a railway accident, even a minor one such as this, are of the most
singular description. I felt that I was growing angry again. I had a
grievance because not a soul there seemed to care whether I caught the
Calais boat or not. That, under the unusual circumstances, the steamer
would probably wait did not occur to me. Nor did I perceive that there
was no real necessity for me to catch the steamer. I might just as
well have spent the night at the Lord Warden, and proceeded on my
journey in the morning. But no! I must hurry away instantly!

Then I thought of the jewel-box.

"Where's my jewel-box?" I demanded vehemently from the guard, as
though he had stolen it.

He turned to me.

"What's that you're carrying?" he replied.

All the time I had been carrying the jewel-box. At the moment of the
collision I must have instinctively clutched it, and my grasp had not
slackened. I had carried it to the waiting-room and back without
knowing that I was doing so!

This sobered me once more. But I would not stay on the scene. I was
still obsessed by the desire to catch the steamer. And abruptly I set
off walking down the line. I left the crowd and the confusion and the
ruin, and hastened away bearing the box.

I think that I must have had no notion of time, and very little notion
of space. For I arrived at the harbour without the least recollection
of the details of my journey thither. I had no memory of having been
accosted by any official of the railway, or even of having encountered
any person at all. Fortunately it had ceased to rain, and the wind,
though still strong, was falling rapidly.

Except for a gatekeeper, the bleak, exposed pier had the air of being
deserted. The lights of the town flickered in the distance, and above
them rose dimly