The last up-train left at eight o'clock. In October the passengers made no great demand on the guard's attention; in the season he might have been, with justness, likened to a sardine packer. Entrustment of the bundle of proofs, to be posted by the railway man on arrival in London, was an easily arranged matter.
Crossing the hand with a piece of silver is as effective with the average guard as it is with a gipsy: the oracle is worked thereby. The proofs would reach the publisher by first post in the morning.
Masters had effected this arrangement by five minutes to eight; five minutes before the scheduled time for the train's departure for London. Having lighted a cigar in the shelter of the waiting-room doorway, he buttoned up his coat, prepared for his return walk home.
As—buttoned up, cigar in mouth—he emerged from the station's precincts, he could not fail to observe the lights in the back windows of Ivy Cottage. The bungalow stood not three minutes' walk away.
That he should have avoided, he knew; but the night was dark; he would not be seen. Moreover, he was in no way different from other moths who ever flutter round candles.
So, more or less unconsciously, he was attracted; slowly walked in the direction of the light. The little god with wings is as experienced in the use of the magnet as the dart.
The corner of the road, which the rear of the house faced, was reached. Suddenly the back door of the house was opened. By the light in the passage behind he saw a man and a woman silhouetted in the door-frame, evidently engaged in actions of a farewell.
The woman had her arms lovingly round the man's neck. She fervently kissed him—his lips—again and again. Her sorrow at the parting was apparently of the deepest kind; at times she applied her handkerchief to her eyes. Not a detail of the incident escaped the attention of the man in the road.
Masters stood quite still watching them. Not an act due to ill-breeding: he was for the moment simply incapable of movement. Had his existence depended on a forward step, Death would have added another name to his list.
The couple came out in the garden; walked towards the gate. The path led straight from the door; the hall lamp still showed him the positions: the woman's arms clinging around the man.