They moved slowly away; they turned the corner and at the same instant the train began to move. Tony snatched at Maradick’s hand and then made a wild leap across the platform. The train was moving quite fast now; he made a clutch at one of the carriages. Two porters rushed forward shouting, but he had the handle of the door. He flung it open; for a sickening instant he stood swaying on the board; it seemed as though he would be swept back. Then some one pulled him in. He lurched forward and disappeared; the door was closed.
A lot of little papers rose in a little cloud of dust into the air. They whirled to and fro. A little wind passed along the platform.
Maradick turned round and walked slowly away.
CHAPTER XVIII
AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH—MARADICK
GOES TO CHURCH AND AFTERWARDS PAYS A
VISIT TO MORELLI
As he came out of the station and looked at the little road that ran down the hill, at the grey banks of cloud, at the white and grey valley of the sea, he felt curiously, uncannily alone. It was as though he had suddenly, through some unknown, mysterious agency been transported into a new land, a country that no one ever found before. He walked the hill with the cautious adventurous sense of surprise that some explorer might have had; he was alone in the world of ghosts.
When he came to the bottom of the road he stopped and tried to collect his thoughts. Where was he? What was he going to do? What were the thoughts that were hovering, like birds of prey, about his head, waiting for the moment of descent to come? He stood there quite stupidly, as though his brain had been suddenly swept clear of all thought; it was an empty, desolate room. Everything was empty, desolate. Two plane trees waved mournfully; there were little puddles of rain-water at his feet reflecting the dismal grey of the sky; a very old bent woman in a black cloak hobbled slowly up the hill. Then suddenly his brain was alive again, suddenly he knew. Tony was gone. Tony was gone and he must see people and explain.