The wrath of a woman had in it something peculiarly alarming and mysterious for Brecky. He felt that Kathleen was capable of the most amazing deeds, that she was not bound by any of his rules or scruples. He couldn’t imagine what she would do. He was completely lost.
He opened the front door and stepped out into the tumultuous night. Fortunately there was only one direction in which to go, unless one wished to walk into the sea, and he didn’t think that even an enraged wife would do that. There was nothing suicidal about Kathleen, anyhow. She was too sane, too solid, too honestly fond of life.
He was also aware that she was well able to withstand this weather. Where he could go, sturdy as he was, she could go, too. She was vigorous and resolute.
The wind was at his back now. He went with fierce impetus along the empty streets, and he went, inevitably, to the railway station. He entered the warm little waiting room, where a white-bearded agent dozed in his ticket booth.
The man looked up and nodded at Brecky.
“Too late!” he said. “She’s gone!”
This might mean either a train or a wife.
“Ten minutes ago,” the agent went on, full of the secret triumph he always felt at the spectacle of a thwarted traveler. “You’ll have to wait two hours, and mebbe more.”
Brecky sat down near the stove and set to work to frame a question which should in no way compromise his wife. He wished to seem aware of all her doings. He couldn’t ask whether she had been at the station; but the agent assisted him.
“Your missus would ’a’ lost the nine o’clock train herself, if it hadn’t ’a’ been near half an hour late.”