mstances, and yielded more readily than the
average man to the wayward promptings of the faithful spirit that
nestles somewhere in almost every intellect. He began to regard this
white journey to the ice-bound and rugged north with something of a
child's wide-eyed, half-delighted, half-alarmed anticipation. He thought
of the darkness, of the dangers by the way, of the multitudes of lonely
snow-wreathed miles the train would have to cover; of the increasing
cold as they went higher and higher up the land, of the early dawn over
fells and stone walls, of the grey light on the grey sea. Then he
listened to the strangely muffled roar of a London hoarse with cold. And
he shivered and had feelings of a man bound on some tremendous and novel
quest. As he came out of the hotel the wintry air met him and embraced
him. He entered the station, dull and sinister in the night, with its
haggard gas-lamps and arches yawning to the snow. There were few
passengers, and they looked anxious. The train drew in. Maurice had his
carriage to himself. The porter wished him good luck on his journey with
the voice and manner of one clearly foreseeing imminent disaster and
death. The whistle sounded, and the train glided, a long black and
orange snake, into the white wonder of the clouded night. Snow beat upon
the windows, incrusted with the filagree work of frost, and as the speed
of the train increased the carriage filled with the persistent music of
an intense and sustained activity. This music, and the thoughts of
Maurice fought against sleep. He leaned back with open eyes and listened
to the song of the train. Its monotony was like the monotony of an
irritable man, he thought, always angry, always expressing his anger.
Beneath bridges, in tunnels, the anger was dashed with ripples of fury,
with spurts of brutalising passion. And then the normal current of dull
temper flowed on again as before. Maurice wished that the windows were
not merely thick white blinds completely shutting out the night. He
longed to see the storm in which they fled towards greater storms, the
country which they spurned as they sprang northwards! Northwards! And to
that valley!

His thoughts went to his old life alone there, to the coming into it of
the haunting voice, to his terror, his struggle, his flight southward.
He had never thought to return there. Yet now he fled towards that place
of memories, calm, sane, cleansed of persecution, with his mind
fortified, and