The last of the party to go was a slow old gentleman, with a habit of deliberately looking about him. Pausing at the door, this observant person stared up the platform and down the platform, and discovered in the latter direction, standing behind an angle of the wall, an elderly man in black, who had escaped the notice of everybody up to that time. "Why, bless my soul!" said the old gentleman, advancing inquisitively by a step at a time, "it can't be Mr. Bashwood!"
It was Mr. Bashwood--Mr. Bashwood, whose constitutional curiosity had taken him privately to the station, bent on solving the mystery of Allan's sudden journey to London--Mr. Bashwood, who had seen and heard, behind his angle in the wall, what everybody else had seen and heard, and who appeared to have been impressed by it in no ordinary way. He stood stiffly against the wall, like a man petrified, with one hand pressed on his bare head, and the other holding his hat--he stood, with a dull flush on his face, and a dull stare in his eyes, looking straight into the black depths of the tunnel outside the station, as if the train to London had disappeared in it but the moment before.
"Is your head bad?" asked the old gentleman. "Take my advice. Go home and lie down."
Mr. Bashwood listened mechanically, with his usual attention, and answered mechanically, with his usual politeness.
"Yes, sir," he said, in a low, lost tone, like a man between dreaming and waking; "I'll go home and lie down."
"That's right," rejoined the old gentleman, making for the door. "And take a pill, Mr. Bashwood--take a pill."
Five minutes later, the porter charged with the business of locking up the station found Mr. Bashwood, still standing bare-headed against the wall, and still looking straight into the black depths of the tunnel, as if the train to London had disappeared in it but a moment since.
"Come, sir!" said the porter; "I must lock up. Are you out of sorts? Anything wrong with your inside? Try a drop of gin-and-bitters."
"Yes," said Mr. Bashwood, answering the porter, exactly as he had answered the old gentleman; "I'll try a drop of gin-and-bitters."
The porter took him by the arm, and led him out. "You'll get it there," said the man, pointing confidentially to a public-house; "and you'll get it good."
"I shall get it there," echoed Mr. Bashwood, still mechanically repeating what was said to him; "and I shall get it good."