He had intended to go to London, but at the station he saw a sign indicating a train for Plymouth. The name started out of the blurred past and relieved him, a little restored his balance, and he saw clearly the scenes of his boyhood--the grimy little office where he had been articled, the ships, the Hoe and the Sound. Then all that too slipped away from him. He took the train for Plymouth, and had a carriage all to himself as far as Crewe. He sat stupidly staring out of the window. The train was going so fast. Why did everything move so fast? . . . He was very tired. At Crewe a man entered the carriage. He had not thought of that. He must change. He must be alone. The train moved on before he could bring himself to stir. . . . With the presence of the man at the other end of the carriage his mood changed. Out of the cold mists that were upon him a desire rose and took possession of him. He did not know what desire it was but it took the form of an itch to speak to the man. He stole glances at him but his lips would not obey him. The man said: "It's a fine day." Frederic agreed that it was a fine day, and the desire in him fell back into the void. The man was part of the absurd world that had nothing to do with him, the world that went on, the trivial, silly world. How trivial and silly everything was: the train was silly, movement was silly; absurd and grotesque was the man's voice and his idiotic comment on the day, and that was silly too. A day was but the passage out of night into night. The whole world was nothing, moving out of nothing into nothing. Some things were clear because they did not matter; other things were blurred because they had mattered to him, Frederic, who mattered no longer because he was standing still and everything else was moving. . . . His eyes mechanically read the legend--"To Stop the Train Pull Down the Cord Outside the Window. Penalty for Improper Use, £5." "I could stop it," he thought, "but it would only move on again. Everything moves on again." With that slight movement in his mind old habit reasserted itself and he began to crave for self-pity, but the unfamiliar presence of the man made that impossible. That habit of mind needed the co-operation of other habits. It was isolated and fell away again. . . . There had been so much clear-cut action in the last few hours, action for a purpose, action that could not be recalled and therefore drove him on to the fulfilment of the purpose. "I must be alone," thumped Frederic's mind, and the train-wheels took it up, "alone, alone, alone." He became exasperated with the presence of the other man. What right had he in the world where there was nothing but Frederic, nothing at all, an empty world where a man must at last make sure, make very sure, that he is nothing?