'No,' he answered abstractedly, 'I do not recognise in your pleasing picture a portrait of myself. Come! it is time to get in.'
No more words passed between them. Trist stepped into the carriage and closed the door after him. At the same moment the guard signalled, and the heavy train moved slowly away into the darkness. All within the great arched roof was light and life; beyond lay darkness and silence. A turn in the way could be easily followed by watching the glowing red light at the rear of the train, and this presently disappeared.
Then the journalist turned on his heels and walked down the platform.
'That man,' he murmured to himself in his absorbed way, 'is in love.'
Thus, without drum or trumpet, Theodore Trist left England, and set forth to meet the horrors of a campaign of which the record will in future history be a red and sanguinary blot upon the good name of a so-called civilized Continent.
END OF VOL. I.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.