Oh! Egholm felt a nasty blow at his heart. So God—or was it Satan?—had heard his prayer for once. With an ashy face he asked again:
“Nobody hurt, I hope?” And the answer seemed to flash on him as a vision: Anna stretched out on a canvas bier, her thick hair matted with blood.
“Hurt? Oh, Lord, no,” said the porter. “Only the engine turned off down the wrong track, and stuck in the gravel.” He yawned hungrily. “You’re not the only one hanging about here waiting for their blessed trains....”
Egholm felt a strange weakness in the legs, and sat down. The signal bell rang—train due in ten minutes. It seemed to him as if the station had suddenly brightened up. Quite cheerful all at once. Those girls there, for instance, with lovely new boots on. And laughing all the time. The one on the outside leaned right over to listen when the others whispered. Well, well, a good thing everyone wasn’t miserable.
And there—there was a man coming out of the waiting-room—a tall, fat man with rather thin legs—a commercial traveller. He didn’t look pleased at all, but dragged at his two bags like a convict in irons. Then, at sight of the girls, he stopped and drew himself up, anxious to be seen.
He draws a mirror and a tiny brush from his pocket, and wields them like a virtuoso. Then a cigar-case, and next a smart little contrivance for cutting off the end; another little case, with matches in. Evidently he is trying to impress those girls with an idea that he is a sort of original chest of drawers, with all manner of cases and shiny, interesting things inside. And he succeeds. The girls stop talking, and look at him, to see what will happen next. But after a little they fall to laughing again.
When the train rolled in, Fru Egholm, standing at the window of a compartment beyond the end of the platform, saw her husband come running down the length of the carriages, eagerly, with delighted eyes.
Hurriedly she took leave of a couple of women fellow-travellers. They had lived together for the past three or four hours, and suddenly that was over....
Egholm clambered up on the footboard, and found a pleasant surprise. Sivert was not there!