en sent for to a dying child, was weeping aloud; a
dazed man with bound-up head and a terrified wife were pounced upon
immediately by expectant friends, and borne off with voluble sympathy.
One or two people slightly hurt were helped out after the others. The
train was emptied at last. Aurelia was not there. Charles went down the
length of the train looking into each carriage, and then came back,
answering Ralph's glance with a shake of the head. The man in black, who
seemed to have been watching him, came up.

"Have _all_ come back by this train?" Charles asked.

"All, sir, except,"--and he hesitated--"except a few. The doctor who
went has not returned; and the guard says there were some of the
passengers, badly hurt, that he would not allow to be moved from the
farm when the train came for them. The engine-driver and one or two
others were--"

Charles made a sign to him to be silent.

"How far is it?" he asked.

"Twenty miles, sir."

"Are the roads practicable?"

"No, sir. At least they would be very uncertain once you got into the
lanes."

"We can walk along the line," said Ralph. "That must be clear. Let us
start at once."

"Could not the station-master send us down on an engine?" asked Charles.
"We would pay well for it."

The police-inspector shook his head, but Charles went off to inquire,
nevertheless, and he followed him. I thought him a very pushing,
inquisitive kind of person. I have always had a great dislike to the
idle curiosity which is continually prying into the concerns of others.
Ralph and I walked up and down, up and down, the now deserted platform.
I spoke to him once or twice, but he hardly answered; and after a time I
gave it up, and we paced in silence.

At last Charles returned. His request for an engine had been refused,
but a further relay of workmen was being sent down the line in a couple
of hours' time, and he had obtained leave for himself and us to go with
them. After two long interminable hours of that everlasting pacing we
found ourselves in an open truck, full of workmen, steaming slowly out
of the station. At the last moment the man in black jumped in, and
accompanied us.

The pace may have been great, but to us it seemed exasperatingly slow,
and in the open truck the cold was piercing. The workmen, who laughed
and talked among themselves, appeared to take no notice of it; but I saw
that Charles was shivering, and presently he made his brother light his
pipe, and bega