She swept it into her purse with an absent, preoccupied manner,
and he turned with a smile to one of his fellow-clerks, touching his
forehead significantly.
"She is evidently on the road for Colney Hatch," he observed. "If I had
said the train would stop at Liliput, in my opinion she would have said,
'Give me a ticket for there.'"
But the object of his remarks, all unconscious of them, had gone on to
the platform. With the same appearance of not wishing to be seen, she
looked into the carriages.
There was one almost empty; she entered it, took her seat in the corner,
drew her veil still more closely over her face, and never raised her
eyes.
A quarter past three; the bell rings loudly. There is a shrill whistle,
and then, slowly at first, the train moves out of the station. A few
minutes more, and the long walls, the numerous arches, are all left
behind, and they are out in the blinding sunlight, hurrying through the
clear, golden day as though life and death depended upon its speed. On,
on, past the green meadows, where the hedgerows were filled with
woodbines and wild roses, and the clover filled the air with fragrance;
past gray old churches whose tapering spires pointed to heaven; past
quiet homesteads sleeping in the sunshine; past silent, quaint villages
and towns; past broad rivers and dark woods. Yet never once did the
silent woman raise her eyes, never once did she look from the windows at
the glowing landscape that lay on either side.
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