le to await the return
of the train that was to convey the dead and wounded, more recently
extricated, to Clatterby.

When that train arrived at the station it was touching to witness the
pale anxious faces that crowded the platform as the doors were opened
and the dead and sufferers carried out; and to hear the cries of agony
when the dead were recognised, and the cries of grief, strangely, almost
unnaturally, mingled with joy, when some who were supposed to have been
killed were carried out alive. Some were seen almost fondling the dead
with a mixture of tender love and abject despair. Others bent over them
with a strange stare of apparent insensibility, or looked round on the
pitying bystanders inquiringly, as if they would say, "Surely, surely,
this _cannot_ be true." The sensibilities of some were stunned, so that
they moved calmly about and gave directions in a quiet solemn voice, as
if the great agony of grief were long past, though it was painfully
evident that it had not yet begun, because the truth had not yet been
realised.

Among those who were calm and collected, though heart-stricken and
deadly pale, was Loo Marrot. She had been sent to the station by her
father to await the arrival of the train, with orders to bring Will
Garvie home. When Will was carried out and laid on the platform alive,
an irresistible gush of feeling overpowered her. She did not give way
to noisy demonstration, as too many did, but knelt hastily down, raised
his head on her knee, and kissed his face passionately.

"Bless you, my darling," said Will, in a low thrilling voice, in which
intense feeling struggled with the desire to make light of his
misfortune; "God has sent a cordial that the doctors haven't got to
give."

"O William!" exclaimed Loo, removing the hair from his forehead--but Loo
could say no more.

"Tell me, darling," said Garvie, in an anxious tone, "is father safe,
and mother, and Gertie?"

"Father is safe, thank God," replied Loo, with a choking voice, "and
Gertie also, but mother--"

"She is not dead?" exclaimed the fireman.

"No, not dead, but very _very_ much hurt. The doctors fear she may not
survive it, Will."

No more was said, for at that moment four porters came up with a
stretcher and placed Garvie gently upon it. Loo covered him with her
shawl, a piece of tarpaulin was thrown over all, and thus he was slowly
borne away to John Marrot's home.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

RESULTS OF THE A