"Still," Stafford laughed to himself, "I am an abused man. I am a victim of atrocious circumstances. I'm an injured being, and I'm at bay! I'm going to turn and make the best of it savagely. I'll have, at least, the comfort of looking into a pair of eyes and listening to a voice. I'll go and talk to Her."
And he went into the next car and seated himself beside the Far Away Lady, who received him kindly. He resolved to indulge himself in her companionship for a time, though against his better judgment. He knew that he was but making his trial the harder to bear.
"Do you know," he said, after the first greeting, "that I wish I could sing?"
"And why do you wish that?" she queried.
"Because, if I could, I would get off the train and wade through the snow away out to that clump of evergreens you see there two-thirds of the way up the slope—which would be out of hearing from here—and I would get behind the evergreens, out of sight, and sing something dolorous."
"Why would you do that?"
"I hardly know myself. I suppose it would be something in the mood and the way of the old troubadours, who, when things went wrong, murmured 'Alack' and sought the silent places and engaged in dismal vocalism."
"But don't you think it was rather foolish of them?" ventured the Far Away Lady.
"I don't know about that. It must have been a sort of relief. Groaning is a great relief when you are hurt. I noticed that particularly among my workmen in Siberia, whenever one of them had been injured in an accident. Very fine groaners they were, too."
"But what nonsense you are talking"—there was a note of more than anxiety in her voice—"has something happened? Tell me, John. Has anything occurred to-day to disturb you?"