t yet quite down when I traversed the field-path
near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an
hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back,
and it would then be time to go to my signal-man's box.

Before pursuing my stroll I stepped to the brink, and mechanically
looked down, from the point from which I had first seen him. I
cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at
the mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his
left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.

The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in
a moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed,
and that there was a little group of other men standing at a short
distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made.
The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little
low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports
and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than a bed.

With an irresistible sense that something was wrong, with a flashing
self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my leaving
the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or correct
what he did,--I descended the notched path with all the speed I
could make.

"What is the matter?" I asked the men.

"Signal-man killed this morning, sir."

"Not the man belonging to that box?"

"Yes, sir."

"Not the man I know?"

"You will recognize him, sir, if you knew him," said the man who
spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head and raising
an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed."

"O, how did this happen, how did this happen?" I asked, turning
from one to another as the hut closed in again.

"He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his
work better. But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. It
was just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp
in his hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was
towards her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and was
showing how it happened. Show the gentleman, Tom."

The man, who wore a rough, dark dress, stepped back to his former
place at the mouth of the tunnel.

"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, "I saw him
at the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass. There
was no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As
he didn't seem to take heed of the whistl