No sooner had the telegram been despatched than his heart sank within him at the want of foresight shown in sending it.  Had Manston, all the time, a knowledge that his first wife lived, the telegram would be a forewarning which might enable him to defeat Owen still more signally.

Whilst the machine was still giving off its multitudinous series of raps, Edward heard a powerful rush under the shed outside, followed by a long sonorous creak.  It was a train of some sort, stealing softly into the station, and it was an up-train.  There was the ring of a bell.  It was certainly a passenger train.

Yet the booking-office window was closed.

’Ho, ho, John, seventeen minutes after time and only three stations up the line.  The incline again?’ The voice was the stationmaster’s, and the reply seemed to come from the guard.

’Yes, the other side of the cutting.  The thaw has made it all in a perfect cloud of fog, and the rails are as slippery as glass.  We had to bring them through the cutting at twice.’

‘Anybody else for the four-forty-five express?’ the voice continued.  The few passengers, having crossed over to the other side long before this time, had taken their places at once.

A conviction suddenly broke in upon Edward’s mind; then a wish overwhelmed him.  The conviction—­as startling as it was sudden—­was that Manston was a villain, who at some earlier time had discovered that his wife lived, and had bribed her to keep out of sight, that he might possess Cytherea.  The wish was—­to proceed at once by this very train that was starting, find Manston before he would expect from the words of the telegram (if he got it) that anybody from Carriford could be with him—­charge him boldly with the crime, and trust to his consequent confusion (if he were guilty) for a solution of the extraordinary riddle, and the release of Cytherea!

The ticket-office had been locked up at the expiration of the time at which the train was due.  Rushing out as the guard blew his whistle, Edward opened the door of a carriage and leapt in.  The train moved along, and he was soon out of sight.

Springrove had long since passed that peculiar line which lies across the course of falling in love—­if, indeed, it may not be called the initial itself of the complete passion—­a longing to cherish; when the woman is shifted in a man’s mind from the region of mere admiration to the region of warm fellowship.  At this assumption of her nature, she changes to him in tone, hue, and expression.  All about the loved one that said ‘She’ before, says ‘We’ now.  Eyes that were to be subdued become eyes to be feared for:  a brain that was to be probed by cynicism becomes a brain that is to be tenderly assisted; feet that were to be tested in the dance become feet that are not to be distressed; the once-criticized accent, manner, and dress, become the clients of a special pleader.

6.  FIVE TO EIGHT O’CLOCK P.M.