Morning drew on, and in its colder, purer air and atmosphere her thoughts seemed to become clearer, and as the train glided on through the flat and monotonous scenery of England she began to consider the possibility that she might have been deceived—that she had been too swift in avenging her wrongs, or supposed wrongs—and this impression grew with the growing brightness of the reddening dawn, and with that impulsiveness which was characteristic of her, an hour even before the dawn came, she resolved that she would return—she would face the calamity out; she would cast herself upon her friends—not on the world; but how to stop the train, which flew on and on, inexorably on past station after station, every one of which seemed almost dark and deserted.
The steam was let off suddenly; the speed of the train grew slower and slower; it stopped at last in an open and sequestered place, on an embankment overlooking a great stretch of darkened, dimly seen, and flat country, half shrouded, as usual, in haze and mist.
Heads in travelling caps and strange gear were thrust from every window; inquiries were made anxiously and angrily; but no answer was accorded; the officials seemed all to have become very deaf and intensely sullen, while no passenger could alight, as every door was securely locked, to their alarm and indignation.
There was evidently an accident or a breakdown—a block on the line somewhere, no one knew precisely what. Signals were worked and lights flashed to avert destruction from the front or rear, and when the rush of a coming train was heard, 'the boldest held his breath for a time,' till it swept past—an express—on another line of rails.
If she were killed—smashed up horribly like people she had often read of in railways accidents, would Jack be sorry for her? There was a kind of revengeful pleasure in the thought, the conviction that he would be, even while she dropped a few natural tears over her own untimely demise.
The excitement grew apace. The next train might not be on the other line, and the mental agony of the travellers lasted for more than an hour—an hour of terror and misery, and of the wildest impatience to Maude, who in the tumult of her spirits would have welcomed the crash, the destruction, and, so far as she was personally concerned, the death by a collision, to end everything.
At last the steam was got up again, and slowly the train glided into the brilliant station at York just as dawn was reddening the square towers of its glorious minster, and the pale girl sprang out on the platform to find that the train for Edinburgh had passed nearly two hours before, and that she would have to wait—to wait for hours with what patience she could muster.
Great was the evil and distress Hawkey Sharpe, in a spirit of useless revenge, had wrought her.
How slow the returning train was—oh, how slow! It seemed to stop everywhere, and to be no sooner off than it stopped again. Stations hitherto unnoticed had apparently sprung up like mushrooms in the night, and the platforms were crowded with people perpetually getting in or going out.
How long ago it seemed since last night—since that fatal visit, and since she left her pretty home, if home it was.