"Where can it be?" exclaimed the station-master. "I suppose some of those monster excursion-trains are blocking up the line somewhere." A consolatory conclusion, quite doing away with uneasiness or fear. The station-master promulgated the news that the train had not been signalled from Hildon, together with his own suggestive idea of the offending excursion-trains. He told Mr. Oswald Cray it had not been signalled, and he told others: therefore the officials were perfectly at their ease upon the point, whatever the assembled crowed might be. It was just five-and-twenty minutes past seven when Eales returned. He had stayed longer than he intended, and he dashed into his office head foremost, catching a glimpse of the crowd on the platform, now quickly increasing. "What do they want, that lot?" he cried to Williams. "Is anything wrong?" "They are waiting for the up-train. It's preciously behind time tonight, and I suppose some of them are alarmed--have got friends in it, maybe." "What up-train?" asked Eales. "The seven o'clock up-train to London." Eales stood confounded. "Why, is that not come up? An accident must have happened." "Not obliged to," coolly returned Williams. "It's kept back by the excursion-trains, most likely." "There are no excursion-trains today between this and Hildon," quickly observed Eales. "It has not got so far yet. It has not passed Hildon." "It has passed Hildon," replied Eales. "It passed at its proper time, and was signalled up." Williams turned and stared at Eales with all his might. "Who says it has been signalled up?" "Who says it! Why, I say it. I got the signal as usual." "Then how came you to tell me you hadn't had it?" asked Williams. "I never told you so." "You did. You'll say black's white next. It was the only question I asked you--whether the up-train had been signalled, and you replied it had not been." "You said the down-train: you never said the up." "I meant the up. It's not likely I should ask whether the down-train was signalled, when it wasn't near due! _You_ have done a pretty thing!" How long they might have continued to dispute, one seeking to lay the blame upon the other, it is impossible to say. But at that moment the station-master came in again, and the mistake was made known to him and to others. The train _had_ left Hildon at its proper time, and therefore the delay, whatever might be its cause, lay very near to them--in the six miles of rail intervening between Hallingham and Hildon; the train must be on some spot of it.