“You little fool!” he said thickly.  He was breathing heavily as though he had been running; she could feel his chest heave as, for an instant, he held her pressed against him.

He released her almost immediately, and taking her by the arm, led her to the embankment, where he stripped off his overcoat and wrapped it about her.  But she was hardly conscious of what he was doing, for suddenly everything seemed to be spinning round her.  The lights of the torches bobbed up and down in a confused blur of twinkling stars, the sound of voices and the trampling of feet came faintly to her ears as from a great way off, while the grim, black bulk of the piled-up coaches of the train seemed to lean nearer and nearer, until finally it swooped down on top of her and she sank into a sea of impenetrable darkness.

The next thing she remembered was finding a flask held to her lips, while a familiar voice commanded her to drink.  She shook her head feebly.

“Drink it at once,” the voice insisted.  “Do you hear?”

And because her mind held some dim recollection of the futility of gainsaying that peremptory voice, she opened her lips obediently and let the strong spirit trickle down her throat.

“Better now?” queried the voice.

She nodded, and then, complete consciousness returning, she sat up.

“I’m all right now—­really,” she said.

The owner of the voice regarded her critically.

“Yes, I think you’ll do now,” he returned.  “Stay where you are.  I’m going along to see if I can help, but I’ll come back to you again.”

The darkness swallowed him up, and Diana sat very still on the embankment, vibrantly conscious in every nerve of her of the man’s cool, dominating personality.  Gradually her thoughts returned to the happenings of the moment, and then the full horror of what had occurred came back to her.  She began to cry weakly.  But the tears did her good, bringing with them relief from the awful shock which had strained her nerves almost to breaking-point, and with return to a more normal state of mind came the instinctive wish to help—­to do something for those who must be suffering so pitiably in the midst of that scarred heap of wreckage on the line.

She scrambled to her feet and made her way nearer to the mass of crumpled coaches that reared up black against the shimmer of the starlit sky.  No one took any notice of her; all who were unhurt were working to save and help those who had been less fortunate, and every now and then some broken wreck of humanity was carried past her, groaning horribly, or still more horribly silent.

Suddenly a woman brushed against her—­a young woman of the working classes, her plump face sagging and mottled with terror, her eyes staring, her clothes torn and dishevelled.

“My chiel, my li’l chiel!” she kept on muttering.  “Wur be ’ee?  Wur be ’ee?”

Reaching her through the dreadful strangeness of disaster, the soft Devon dialect smote on Diana’s ears with a sense of dear familiarity that was almost painful.  She laid her hand on the woman’s arm.