At the station there was the expected crowd, only it was a larger crowd than any of them could have anticipated. It was evening now, and almost dark, and it was beginning to rain. The station lights shone on banks of lifted umbrella tops; the little flags in the young men’s coats grew wet. People went about saying what a pity it was that it had to rain. And if it hadn’t been Sunday night there would have been a band. Jane found herself very thankful that there was no band. And then, suddenly, there was a band—a small one, playing “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and the crowd was singing with it. Jane wondered, through her dumb pain, how Robert Black was bearing that!
Red was out of the car and off in the crowd—no doubt but he was with Black. He had been heard to express the hope that the blamed train would be on time and cut the agony short, but of course it wasn’t. It was only ten minutes late, however, though to Jane those ten minutes, marked by the clock on the car’s dash, were the longest she had ever known. Then—there was the shrill whistle in the distance she had been waiting for, coming at an interval in the music, and she heard it plainly, and her heart stopped beating.
Black and Red were at the door of the car—they had had to push their way through the people. Black was shaking hands with Mrs. Burns—with Mrs. Macauley—with everybody. Then Jane felt her hand in his, and lifted her eyes to meet his. The headlight from another car shone full in his face; she saw it as if it looked at her from very far away. But his eyes—yes, she could see his eyes—and see how they were piercing hers, as if he would look through to her very soul for that last time—oh, she was sure it was for the last time!
He did not say a word to her—not a word. But his hand, for that instant, spoke for him. Then he had gone away again, through the crowd, for the train was in, and the locals made but short stops. A shout went up—Black’s young men waved their arms, their flags—their umbrellas—everything they had.
He stood on the back platform, as he so often had stood before, when the train pulled out. He looked back at them, the crowds, the flags, the umbrella tops—but he saw only one thing—the thin, gleaming rails, stretching away, farther and farther into the distance—and the night.
CHAPTER XVIII
AT FOUR IN THE MORNING
THE morning papers! How many did Red have of them?
Robert Black had been away for almost a year. Jane Ray’s little shop had been so long closed that few now turned down the narrow street, forgetting that the sign no longer told where the rarest and most valuable things in town surely could be found. People had ceased to ask who was the tall young man with the interesting face who was said to write the most brilliant articles to be found in certain columns of one of the great dailies. Tom Lockhart was gone, and Harry Perkins, and many another figure from the suburban streets. Only an occasional youth could be seen now and then upon a delivery wagon. Girls were everywhere, taking the places of the young men who had gone. Everything was changed—everything; now that war had come so near that it could be felt.
Those morning papers! Red bought and bought, not satisfied with the morning and evening editions delivered at his door. He came home with bundles of them under his arm, and scanned them hurriedly, his face darkening as he read. For the news was heavy news, of losses and reversals, of a gathering tide which could not be stemmed, of worn and wasted French and British regiments falling slowly but surely back because it was not possible to hold another hour against the tremendous odds of reinforced enemy lines.
“When will we get in? Great God, those fellows can’t hold out forever!” Red would shout, dashing the latest paper to the floor where its black and ominous headlines seemed to stare back at him with the inescapable truth in each sinister word. “We’ll get into it too late—they can’t stand such awful pressure. Oh, if we’d been ready!—instead of sleeping on our arms. Arms—we hadn’t any—though they kept telling us—the men who knew. We thought we were fine and fit—we—fat and heavy with easy lives. Yes, we’re awake now but we’ve a long way yet to run to get to the fire, and meanwhile, the world is burning up!”