The station where she alighted was in a hubbub of life; everyone seemed to leave the train here, and to resent the presence of all the others.  They were mostly English.  The men hung back, as if, now that there was business to be done in some foolish tongue, they had better leave the ladies to do it.  Many of them seemed prepared, if there was dissension, to disown their womankind and run for it.  They looked haughty and nervous.  Such of them as had tried to shave in the train were boasting of it and holding handkerchiefs to their chins.  The ladies were moving about in a masterful way, carrying bunches of keys.  When they had done everything, the men went and stood by their sides again.

Outside the station buses and carriages were innumerable, and everybody was shouting; but Grizel saw that nearly all her fellow-passengers were hurrying by foot or conveyance to one spot, all desirous of being there first, and she thought it must be the place where the diligence started from, and pressed on with them.  It proved to be a hotel where they all wanted the best bedroom, and many of them had telegraphed for it, and they gathered round a man in uniform and demanded that room of him; but he treated them as if they were little dogs and he was not the platter, and soon they were begging for a room on the fourth floor at the back, and swelling with triumph if they got it.  The scrimmage was still going on when Grizel slipped out of the hotel, having learned that the diligence would not start until the following morning.  It was still early in the afternoon.  How could she wait until to-morrow?

Bad-Platten was forty miles away.  The road was pointed out to her.  It began to climb at once.  She was to discover that for more than thirty miles it never ceased to climb.  She sat down, hesitating, on a little bridge that spanned a horrible rushing white stream.  Poets have sung the glories of that stream, but it sent a shiver through her.  On all sides she was caged in by a ring of splendid mountains, but she did not give them one admiring glance (there is a special spot where the guide-books advise you to stop for a moment to do it); her one passionate desire was to fling out her arms and knock them over.

She had often walked twenty miles in a day, in a hill country too, without feeling tired, and there seemed no reason why she should not set off now.  There were many inns on the way, she was told, where she could pass the night.  There she could get the diligence next day.  This would not bring her any sooner to him than if she waited here until to-morrow; but how could she sit still till to-morrow?  She must be moving; she seemed to have been sitting still for an eternity.  “I must not do anything rash,” she told herself, carefully.  “I must arrive at Bad-Platten able to sit down beside him the moment I have taken off my jacket—­oh, without waiting to take off my jacket.”  She went into the hotel and ate some food, just to