What, then, were we doing here, and what _was_ "here"? Had there been an accident--some unforeseen necessity for stopping? At that moment a curious sound, from some yards' distance only it seemed to come, caught my ear. It was that croaking, cackling cough!--the cough of my momentary fellow-passenger, towards whom I had felt an instinctive aversion. I looked out of the window--there was a refreshment-room just opposite, dimly lighted, like everything else, and in the doorway, as if just entering, was a figure which I felt pretty sure was that of the man with the cough. "Bah!" I said to myself, "I must not be fanciful. I daresay the fellow's all right. He is evidently in the same hole as myself. What in Heaven's name are we waiting here for?" I sprang out of the carriage, nearly tumbling over a porter slowly passing along. "How long are we to stay here?" I cried. "When do we start again for ----?" and I named the Junction. "For ----" he repeated in the queerest German I ever heard--was it German? or did I discover his meaning by some preternatural cleverness of my own? "There is no train for ---- for four or five hours, not till----" and he named the time; and leaning forward lazily, he took out my larger bag and my rug, depositing them on the platform. He did not seem the least surprised at finding me there--I might have been there for a week, it seemed to me. "No train for five hours? Are you mad?" I said. He shook his head and mumbled something, and it seemed to me that he pointed to the refreshment-room opposite. Gathering my things together I hurried thither, hoping to find some more reliable authority. But there was no one there except a fat man with a white apron, who was clearing the counter--and--yes, in one corner was the figure I had mentally dubbed "The man with the cough". I addressed the cook or waiter--whichever he was. But he only shook his head--denied all knowledge of the trains, but informed me that--in other words--I must turn out; he was going to shut up. "And where am I to spend the night, then?" I said angrily, though clearly it was not the aproned individual who was responsible for the position in which I found myself. There was a "Restauration," he informed me, near at hand, which I should find still open, straight before me on leaving the station, and then a few doors to the right, I would see the lights. Clearly there was nothing else to be done. I went out, and as I did so the silent figure in the corner rose also and followed me. The station was evidently going to bed. As I passed the porter I repeated the hour he had named, adding: "That is the first train for ---- Junction?" He nodded, again naming the exact time. But I cannot do so, as I have never been able to recollect it.