Adam Walter stopped in front of her carriage and, without a word, uncovered himself. He stood still there near the line when the train had gone. He looked long, long after the trail of smoke.
The long dark night dissolved into dawn and fields and trees....
Now and then little sentry huts appeared as if something white had been flashed beside the rushing windows of the train. The barriers at the crossings were like outstretched arms. Racing telegraph poles, signal wires shining like silver. The shrubs rocked in the wind caused by the train and the shadow of the smoke floated broad over the sunlit cornfields.
Then all was reversed. The train stopped.
People had been waiting for a long time at the small station of Ille. Blue spots, bright peasants’ petticoats, shining white chemisettes. All the round holiday hats were doffed simultaneously like a flock of black birds.
Bareheaded, dumb, the people of Ille stood before the wife of Thomas Illey. Hard brown hands offered themselves and the tearful eyes looked at her as if they had always known her.
“God brought you back home to us.” The deeply furrowed face of an old peasant bent over her hand.
Those behind gathered round the boys. One peasant woman stroked George Illey’s arm.
“Oh my sweet soul, you are just like your father.”
Anne looked round bewildered. She felt some strange new emotion. The ground she stood on was the ground of Ille, the trees had grown from it, the people too, everything was part of it, her sons, Thomas’s memory....