For instance, she never could forget the way she waited, on the night of the third of November, along with Linda and Dr. Raughty, for the arrival of the last train from Mundham, bringing Mr. Traherne back from a visit to the Asylum with news of Adrian.
The news the priest brought was unexpectedly favourable. Adrian, it seemed, had taken a rapid turn for the better, and the doctors declared that any day now it might become possible for Nance to see him.
As they stood talking on the almost deserted platform, Nance’s mind visualized with passionate intensity the moment when she herself would take Baptiste to see his father and perhaps together—why not?—bring him back in triumph to Rodmoor.
Her happy reverie on this particular occasion was interrupted by a fantastic incident, which, trifling enough in itself, left a queer and significant impression behind it. This was nothing less than the sudden escape from Mr. Traherne’s pocket of his beloved Ricoletto.
In the excitement of their pleasure over the news brought by the priest, the rat took the opportunity of slipping from the recesses of his master’s coat; and jumping down on the platform, he leapt, quick as a flash, upon the railway track below. Mr. Traherne, with a cry of consternation, scrambled down after him, and throwing aside his ulster which impeded his progress, began desperately pursuing him. The engine of the train by which the clergyman had arrived was now resting motionless, separate from the line of carriages, deserted by its drivers. Straight beneath the wheels of this inert monster darted the escaped rat. The agitated priest, with husky perturbed cries, ran backwards and forwards along the side of the engine, every now and then stooping down and frantically endeavouring to peer beneath it.
It was so queer a sight to see this ungainly figure, dressed as always in his ecclesiastical cassock, rushing madly round the dark form of the engine and at intervals falling on his knees beside it, that Linda could not restrain an almost hysterical fit of laughter.
Dr. Raughty looked whimsically at Nance.
“He might be a priest of Science, worshipping the god of machines,” he remarked, assuming as he spoke a sitting posture, the better to slide down, himself, from the platform to the track.
The station-master now approached, anxious to close his office for the night and go home. The porter, a peculiarly unsympathetic figure, took not the least notice of the event, but coolly proceeded to extinguish the lights, one by one.