Through the darkness, Phemie and Basil travelled on together, not by any special train but by the express, in which once again they were able to have a compartment to themselves. By the time they left the junction, the short day was drawing to its close; and before they had got twenty miles nearer home it was quite dark, and the stations through which they shot were lighted up and bright with gas.
They never spoke to one another. Greatly that journey reminded Phemie of a former one she had undertaken, when, through the night, she and her uncle hastened away from Marshlands to seek a new home. Then it had been Mr. Aggland who sate beside the window looking out into the summer night; now it was Basil who never turned his head away from the contemplation of the blackness, which was no darker than his own thoughts.
Through the night the train dashed on—through the hours he and she never opened their lips to speak to one another.
She would have given anything to hear his voice—to hear even the sound of lamentation and the words of mourning, but Basil remained obstinately mute.
He was thinking of his boy—his first-born—the child whom he brought from India with him—thinking of him, and of his wife, and of the woman who had carried the evil tidings to him.
For the first time, also, he was thinking of his life—of his past—of the sin that past held.
Every idea seemed vague and shadowy—the only one certainty he appeared able to grasp being that Harry was dead, and that he was travelling home to see him.
Home—what a mockery the word sounded!
At Disley they found Mr. Aggland waiting for their arrival on the platform.
“I brought the carriage over on chance,” he said, “hoping you might return by this train. Mrs. Stondon is very ill,” he added, addressing Basil. But Basil paid no attention to the sentence.