The boy's face and mine changed simultaneously, his brightening, mine paling.
"Lord Erskine!" I cried, a little ghostly feeling of fear stealing over me—for my American instincts failed to grasp the rapidity with which dead men's shoes can be snatched off and fitted with new rubber heels in England—"Lord Erskine is dead."
The little messenger boy looked at me pityingly.
"'E wuz," he explained, "but 'e ain't now!"
"And—and do you mean to tell me that this is the station for Colmere Abbey?" I demanded, turning again to the man.
"Yes, miss."
He tried hard not to look supercilious, but there, six feet above my head, was the name "Colmere" in faded yellow letters against the black background of the sign-board. And I had always believed in psychic warnings!
"I—I hadn't thought to look at the sign-board," I endeavored to explain. "It seems that it doesn't matter what your station is, for you're as far away from your destination at one place as at another—during the coal strike! You think I can't get a train to Bannerley until——"
"Perhaps to-night—perhaps not until to-morrow morning," he answered with cruel frankness, and I knew from heresay that trains did occasionally wander, comet-fashion, out of their orbit, and come through stations at unexpected moments. "Still, there's a railroad hotel about a mile down the track."
"A railroad hotel?"