"The full number of casualties has not yet been ascertained, sir, but at least half the passengers are killed or injured."
"How ghastly!"
"Awful, sir, awful. It is the worst accident we have ever had on the Grand Central system."
"Poor souls, poor souls!" said my companion. "God rest them!"
"We haven't had a really bad accident for twenty-two years. But this breaks our record with a vengeance. I can't think what the poor chap was doing. As good a driver as we've got, to go and do a thing like that——"
The station-master, a venerable and grizzled man with a stern, heavily lined face, suddenly lost his voice.
"Fate," said my companion with a sombre smile. "Who shall explain the workings of destiny?"
Who, indeed! Had it not been for the bullets of the would-be assassin we should, in all probability, at that moment have been both among the dead. What, after all, does our human foresight matter in the sum of things? All the same, I could not help recalling with a sense of wonder my Uncle Theodore's anxiety that we should not travel by the ill-fated 5.28.
"You will be able to go on as far as Blakiston," said the station-master, "and the Company has arranged for motor cars to meet the train to take you on to Middleham."
"What is the distance from Blakiston to Middleham?"