“I’ll go back for the other,” responded Sproatly promptly.
“You don’t know where I left it.”
“Then I’ll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on,” the man persisted.
Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out into the street. Agatha ran back to the room they had left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognized them, and turned in sudden astonishment. Standing in the shadow she involuntarily waited. Not far away a stream of light from the door of the room shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into Agatha’s face, for she remembered the embarrassment in Sproatly’s manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her from going back for the mitten.
Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt whatever that he called her “My dear.” Filled with burning indignation, Agatha stood still for a moment and they were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had recovered her outward composure, and they went on together toward the track. As yet she was conscious only of anger at Gregory’s treachery. That feeling possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of anything else.
Cold as it was, there were a good many loungers in the station, and Sproatly, who spoke to one or two of them, led his party away from the little shed where they loitered, and walked briskly up and down beside the track until a speck of blinking light rose out of the white wilderness. The light grew rapidly larger, until they could make out a trail of smoke behind it, and the roar of wheels rose in a long crescendo. Then a bell commenced to toll, and the blaze of a big lamp beat into their faces as the great locomotive came clanking into the station.
The locomotive stopped, and the light from the long car windows fell upon the groups of watching fur-clad men, while here and there a shadowy object that showed black against it leaned out from a platform. There was, however, no sign of any passengers for the train until at the last moment two figures appeared hurrying along. They drew nearer, and Agatha set her lips tight as she recognized them, for the light from a vestibule shone into Hawtrey’s face as he half lifted Sally on to one of the platforms and sprang up after her. Then the bell tolled again, and the train slid slowly out of the station with its lights flashing upon the snow.
Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. The thing, she felt, admitted of only one explanation. Sproatly’s diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was sensible of an intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with Gregory, at least as far as it was possible, and he had utterly humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable.
In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings walked up to Sproatly, who, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, had drawn back judiciously into the shadow.
“Now,” she said, “I understand. You, of course, anticipated this.”