The young man's stammering gratitude soon undeceived him, and as Burnside left him his last words sent a glow of satisfaction through him—"I won't say any more than just this, your splendid offer has removed all obstacles from my path. The career I have mapped out for myself is now absolutely assured."
For half an hour longer the duke remained alone, thinking of the events of the day, thinking especially of Lady Constance Camborne. He did not give a thought to the smaller Gainsborough or the Florentine vase, and he was entirely ignorant that he had just done something which was to have a marked and definite influence upon his future life.
By six o'clock he had wired to Colonel Simpson, had obtained the necessary exeat from the dean, and was entering a first-class carriage in the fast train from Oxford to London.
The fog was thick all along the line, and more than once the express was stopped for some minutes when the muffled report of fog signals, like guns fired under a blanket, could be heard in the dark.
One such stop occurred when, judging by the time and such blurred indications of gaunt housebacks as he could discern, the duke felt that they must be just outside Paddington Station.
He had the carriage to himself, brightly lit, warm, and comfortable. He sat there, wrapped in his heavy, sable-lined coat, a little drowsy and tired, though with a pleasant sense of well-being, despite the errand which was bringing him to London.
The noise of the train died away and the engine stopped. Voices could be heard talking in the silence, voices which seemed very far away.
Then there was the roar of an advancing train somewhere in the distance, a roar which grew louder and louder, one or two sudden shouts, and then a frightful crash as if a thunderbolt had burst, a shrill multiple cry of fear, and finally the long, rending noise of timber and iron breaking into splinters.
The duke heard all this, and even as his brain realised what it meant, he was thrown violently up into the air—so it seemed to him—he caught sight of the light in the roof of the carriage for the thousandth part of a second, and then everything flashed away into darkness and silence.