first-class. He had just settled that at such a life-crisis as he had
now reached, it was necessary that the body should be spared fatigue in
order that the mind might be as vigorous as possible for dealing with a
difficult situation, and that the extra expense was therefore justified;
when the station-master went on:

"Yes, I wrote a ticket, just as I might for you, for Lord Blandamer not
a month ago. Perhaps you know Lord Blandamer?" he added venturously;
yet with a suggestion that even the sodality of first-class travelling
was not in itself a passport to so distinguished an acquaintance. The
mention of Lord Blandamer's name gave a galvanic shock to Westray's
flagging attention.

"Oh yes," he said, "I know Lord Blandamer."

"Do you, indeed, sir"--and respect had risen by a skip greater than any
allowed in counterpoint. "Well, I wrote a ticket for his lordship by
this very train not a month ago; no, it was not a month ago, for 'twas
the very night the poor organist at Cullerne was took."

"Yes," said the would-be indifferent Westray; "where did Lord Blandamer
come from?"

"I do not know," the station-master replied--"I do _not_ know, sir," he
repeated, with the unnecessary emphasis common to the uneducated or
unintelligent.

"Was he driving?"

"No, he walked up to this station just as you might yourself. Excuse
me, sir," he broke off; "here she comes."

They heard the distant thunder of the approaching train, and were in
time to see the gates of the level-crossing at the end of the platform
swing silently open as if by ghostly hands, till their red lanterns
blocked the Cullerne Road.

No one got out, and no one but Westray got in; there was some
interchanging of post-office bags in the fog, and then the
station-master-booking-clerk-porter waved a lamp, and the train steamed
away. Westray found himself in a cavernous carriage, of which the cloth
seats were cold and damp as the lining of a coffin. He turned up the
collar of his coat, folded his arms in a Napoleonic attitude, and threw
himself back into a corner to think. It was curious--it was very
curious. He had been under the impression that Lord Blandamer had left
Cullerne early on the night of poor Sharnall's accident; Lord Blandamer
had told them at Bellevue Lodge that he was going away by the afternoon
train when he left them. Yet here he was at Cullerne Road at midnight,
and if he had not come from Cullerne, whence had he come? He could no