Death and desolation were distanced for once. The strange, sad sights, sounds, and memories which the King of Terrors, even though his sceptre has been wrested from his grasp, still brings with him, and leaves behind him wherever his ‘pale feet’ pass, would be changed for the cheery, sweet, common tokens of returning health and life: the fresh, open air, everyday work, the familiar faces of friends no longer anxious or averted. Oliver felt it like a great boon to himself. He went to ’Mily Polley’s marriage with much better spirit and hope, since there was no longer the least probability of his having to attend Jack Dadd’s funeral. Oliver represented ’Mily’s circle, though Sam Cobbe gave her away. An old friend lent her his countenance when she needed it. For she was conscience-stricken and shame-smitten through all her defiance. She was really smarting keenly under the abandonment of her kindred. She was awaking silently—and when had ’Mily ever been silent before?—and sadly, already, even before he had made her his wife, to the utter poverty and short-lived nature of the passion which had existed between her and the man for whom she had—not generously but wilfully, sacrificed all that women hold dear. For this reason she was susceptible to the compliment of Oliver’s presence even more than to the show of her gaudy blue silk gown and desperately smart bonnet and veil. She thanked him with an earnestness which struck Oliver in ’Mily, and which he considered far out of proportion to the cause of the thanks, in the last words she said to him. She went with her husband straight from the church to the railway-station, as the Cobbes could not be expected to furnish the shabbiest version of a wedding-breakfast, and left immediately for Manchester. There was no trace of the couple when Oliver followed them to the station in the course of a quarter of an hour, intending to take a short journey on his own affairs. Oliver Constable had his foot on a carriage step when the station-master hurried up, white and scared-looking, struggling to maintain his composure. He whispered to Oliver, ‘There’s been an accident to the 11.30 train north, close to Medlar Bridge. I’ve just had word. There’s folk hurt. All that can help is wanted immediately; but there’s no use driving the town wild, and bringing out a pack of useless, frantic people as long as it can be prevented. Would you mind, sir, coming with me and the nearest doctor and the surface-men?’ ‘All right,’ consented Oliver, in reference to what was evidently all wrong. He, too, was agitated by the suddenness and shock of the message.