His voice shook in spite of him. The woman turned about sharply.
Martin Cosgrave gave a little start back. It was not Rose Dempsey, but her sister, Sheela. How like Rose she had grown!
"Martin!" she exclaimed, putting out her hand. He gave it a hurried shake and then searched the railway carriage with burning eyes. The people he saw there were all strangers, tired-looking travellers. When he turned from the railway carriage Sheela Dempsey was rushing with her parcels into a waiting-room. He strode after her. He looked at the girl. How unlike Rose she was after all! Nobody—nobody—could ever be like Rose Dempsey!
"Where is Rose?" he asked.
Sheela Dempsey looked up into the face of Martin Cosgrave and saw there what she had half-dreaded to see.
"Martin," she said, "Rose is not coming home."
Martin Cosgrave gripped the door of the waiting-room. The train whistled outside and glided from the station. He heard a woman's cheerful voice cry out a conventional "good-bye, good-bye," and through the window he saw the flutter of a dainty handkerchief. A truck was wheeled past the waiting-room. There was the crack of a whip and some cars rattled away over the road. Then there was silence.
Sheela Dempsey walked over to him and laid a hand upon his shoulder. When she spoke her voice was full of an understanding womanly sympathy.
"Don't be troubling over it, Martin," she said, "Rose is not worth it." She spoke her sister's name with some bitterness.
Vaguely Martin Cosgrave looked into the girl's eyes. He read there in a dim way what the girl could not say of her sister.