Mr. Dugdale was walking up and down Kingcombe railway station, waiting for the early train. One or two sleepy porters were eyeing him with a sort of pitying curiosity, for ill news spreads fast in a country neighbourhood. There was no one else about. Nobody perceived a little figure creeping up the road and coming on the platform. Even Marmaduke did not lift his eyes or relax his melancholy walk until something touched him on the arm. He stood astonished.
“It is I, you see. You are not gone yet.”
“How did you come—you poor child?”
“From Thornhurst—I walked. But how soon shall you start?”
“Walked from Thornhurst!—at this time of night!” said one of the railway-men, who knew the family—as indeed did every one in the neighbourhood. “Lord help us—it's that poor Mrs. Harper!”
Mr. Dugdale tried to remove Agatha from the platform, but she resisted.
“I am come to go with you to Southampton.”
“What need of that? Go back to my house, poor child. If anything is to be done I can do it. If nothing—why”—
“I will go.”
The determination was so calm, the grasp of the little hand so strong, that her brother-in-law urged no more. He went in his quiet way to take her ticket, the railway folk moving respectfully aside, and whispering among themselves something about “poor Mrs. Harper, that was going to Southampton to see after her husband.”