"The explanation is simple, explanations often are. I heard your uncle address you by your name in a most audible tone of voice just towards the close. Most people have no idea how thin the partition really is which divides one compartment from another. Do you know I have heard that in some instances it is made of papier-mâché--fancy! You can always hear if a conversation is taking place in an adjoining compartment--it is surprising how much you can hear if you try, especially if your hearing is as good as mine is--that's another of my gifts. I had my ear glued to the partition most of the time. Of course, I could not hear everything--and I should very much have liked to see, but I gathered enough to enable me to form a general idea, particularly when you began to use violence towards your uncle and to hurl him back into his seat--it amounted to hurling. You see, I was his side. And, of course, when you both raised your voices I could hear a very great deal. I was not in the least surprised at the silence which followed. I understood--oh, I understood! At least, I think I understood. It was perfectly plain that only one person was left in the compartment who counted, and, of course, I knew that was you. I said to myself: 'Now, I wonder how long he'll stay there all alone? He's sure to take advantage of the first opportunity of getting out if the train stops or slows, and if he gets out I'll get out too.' Wasn't it lucky that it stopped in a tunnel, and that, therefore, we were both of us able to get out without being observed? Quite a stroke of fortune! Here we are, right on the high road, with the station a little more than a stone's throw in front of us." Rodney listened to what the stranger had to say as, side by side, they tramped across the uneven ground with feelings which he would not have found it easy to clothe with words. Beyond all doubt this was a lunatic; but of what an uncomfortable kind! He had been wiser to have acted on his first impulse and to have left him in the tunnel. Now it was too late; it would not be the same thing to--leave him there. Yet, if he continued in his company, how should he muzzle him? With what would he make him dumb? By what means could he keep him from blurting out the whole story to the first person they might meet? Once more, though he had uttered not a syllable, there came an answer. "You run no risk of my blabbing, I am not that kind of person--at least, while the cloud is yet afar off. Afterwards, believe me, no one pays any heed to what I say. I play the part of audience only. I am not, like you, one of Nature's criminals; but I am indifferent, which is about the same. What A does to B is A's business and B's, not mine; that I always shall maintain. Here we are at the station. It's been altered since my time; they've given it a new front. When is the next train to town?" He put the question quite naturally to a porter who was standing about.