It has been remarked that the ecclesiastical temper is histrionic; and Wynne was not without a share of this spirit. He would have gone to the stake for a conviction, and made a beautifully effective death-scene for the edification of men and angels, not for a moment aware that there was anything artificial in what he was doing. Now he was not without a consciousness that he was playing the role of a lover and a prodigal, sincere in his love and devotion; yet none the less subtly aware how much more interesting is repentance when there is genuine human passion to repent, is renunciation when there is real love to sacrifice; of how much more effective is saintliness set off against a background of transgression. It was a real if somewhat childish joy to be able to sin actually yet without going beyond hope; of being dramatically false to his vows without crossing the line of possible pardon. "We shall be in Brookfield in ten minutes," Miss Morison said, beginning to look about for her belongings. "We pass the New York express just here." Hardly had she spoken when suddenly and without warning there was an outburst of shrieks from the whistle of the engine, answered and blended with that of another. Before Maurice could realize what the outburst meant, there followed a horrible shock which seemed to dislocate every joint in his body. Berenice was thrown violently into his arms, flung as a dead weight, and shrieking as she fell against his breast. Instinctively he clasped her, and in the terror of the moment it was for a brief instant no more to him that his embrace enfolded her than if she had been the veriest stranger. A hideous din of yells, of crashing wood and rending iron, of shivering glass, of escaping steam, of indescribable sounds which had no resemblance to anything which he had ever heard or dreamed of, and which seemed to beat upon his ears and his brain like blows of bludgeons wielded by the hands of infuriate giants. The end of the car before him was beaten in; splinters of wood and fragments of glass flew about him like hail; it was like being without warning exposed to the fiercest fire of batteries of an implacable enemy. A woman was dashed at his very feet torn and bleeding, her face mangled so that he grew sick and faint at the sight; pinned against the seat opposite, transfixed by a long splinter as with a javelin, was the dapper young man, horribly writhing and mowing, and then stark dead in an instant, staring with wide open eyes and distorted face like a ghastly mask. Moans and shrieks, grindings and roarings, howlings and babbling cries that were human yet were piercingly inarticulate filled the air with an inhuman din which drove him to a frenzy. It seemed as if the world had been torn into fragments.