Both the windows were wide open, and the wind blew in on Nigel, but he did not notice it. His cigarette had gone out, but he still sucked and bit the end, filling his mouth with strings of tobacco, which he did not notice either, though every now and then he mechanically spat them out. All he was conscious of was the pungent smell of night, which invaded even the rushing train. He knew that the trees were heavy and the hedges tangled with their green--he tried to fling his imagination into some sheltered hollow by a wood, and find rest there. He tried to think of sheep and grass and flowers and watching stars. But it was no use--the night was full of the restlessness of the pulsing train, he could not escape from the train, which throbbed like his heart, and by its throbbing seemed to hold his heart a prisoner in it, as if some mysterious astral link connected the two pulses. The train was the heart of the night and darkness, pulsing in ceaseless despair, and he was the heart of the train, pulsing despairingly too, the very centre of sorrow. It was a definite strain for him to realise this, and yet somehow the sensation would not relax--it was infinite relief when at last the great, noisy heart, the heart of the train, stopped beating, though its silence brought with it a sudden wrench and shock, like death. Nigel stumbled out on the East Grinstead platform, his limbs cramped, his head swimming. He thought of taking a cab, but by the time he had roused up the local livery stables and set off in one of their concerns he could almost have reached Sparrow Hall by the fields. A walk would do him good. The night was fine, though it smelled of rain. He had soon left the town behind him, and struck across the fields by St. Margaret's convent. There was no moon, but the stars were unusually lustrous, and the distance was clear, Oxted chalk quarry showing a pale scar on the northern hills. Now and then dark sweeps of cloud passed swiftly overhead, and the wind came in sudden gusts, whistling over the fields, and throbbing through the woods with a great swish of leaves. Nigel had not seen the Three Counties since Easter, which had been early and bleak. The London months since then had to a certain extent denaturalised him, and he was conscious of a vague strangeness in the fields. It was, moreover, four years since he had seen them in their June lushness--the scent of grass was brought him pungently now and then, the scent of leaves, the scent of water.