"And the countryman walked the girl off to a cab, put her in, jumped in
himself, and the crowd cheered again; and that's about all."
"And I'd have given him a cheer too, if I'd been there," said the clerk,
flushing. "Why, if a fellow as calls himself a gentleman was to treat
my sister like that, I'd half-kill him, law or no law."
"And serve him right too," was chorused.
Then the business of catching parcels began again; the indignant clerk
continued his entering; a little more conversation went on in a
desultory manner, and the guards and ticket-collector off duty walked
home.
The station was disturbed by no more extraordinary incident that night.
Trains went and trains came, till at last there was only one more for
the neighbourhood of Scarlett's home.
Doctor Scales was standing on the platform thinking, and in that
confused state of mind that comes upon nearly every one who is in search
of a person in the great wilderness of London, and has not the most
remote idea of what would be the next best step to take. He was asking
himself whether there was anything else that he could do. He had been
to the police, given all the information that he could, and the
telegraph had been set in motion. Then he had been told that nothing
more could be done--that he must wait; and he was waiting, and thinking
whether he ought to telegraph again to Scarlett; to take the last train
due in a few minutes, and go down again; or stay in town, and see what
the morrow brought forth.
"I'll stay," he said at last; and he turned to go, feeling weary and in
that disgusted frame of mind that comes over a man who has been working
hard mentally and bodily for days, and who then finds himself
low-spirited and thoroughly vexed with everything he has done. It is a
mental disease that only one thing will cure, and that is sleep. It was
to find this rest that the doctor had turned, and was about to seek his
chambers, when he came suddenly upon the object of his search--Fanny
Cressy--closely veiled and hanging heavily upon the great arm of her
stalwart brother.
"You here, Cressy?" cried the doctor excitedly.
"Yes, sir," said the farmer fiercely. "Hev you got to say anything
again it?"
"No, man, no! But you--you have found your sister."
"I hev, sir," said Cressy, more fiercely still. "Hev you got anything
to say again that--or _her_?" he added slowly.
"No, no; only I say, thank heaven!" cried the doctor fervently. "I came
up to try and overtake her."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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