Arrived there, the glare of the electric light, the jostling passengers rushing to and from the trains, the shouts and wrangling of porters and cabmen, confused her not a little,--and the bold looks of admiration bestowed on her freely by the male loungers sauntering near the doors of the restaurant and hotel, made her shrink and tremble for shame. She had never travelled entirely alone before--and she began to be frightened at the pandemonium of sights and noises that surged around her. Yet she never once thought of returning,--she never dreamed of going to any of her London friends, lest on hearing of her trouble they might reproach Philip--and this Thelma would not have endured. For the same reason, she had said nothing to Britta.
In her then condition, it seemed to her that only one course lay open for her to follow,--and that was to go quietly home,--home to the Altenfjord. No one would be to blame for her departure but herself, she thought,--and Philip would be free. Thus she reasoned,--if, indeed, she reasoned at all. But there was such a frozen stillness in her soul--her senses were so numbed with pain, that as yet she scarcely realized either what had happened or what she herself was doing. She was as one walking in sleep--the awakening, bitter as death, was still to come.
Presently a great rush of people began to stream towards her from one of the platforms, and trucks of luggage, heralded by shouts of, "Out of the way, there!" and "By'r leave!" came trundling rapidly along--the tidal train from the Continent had just arrived.
Dismayed at the increasing confusion and uproar, Thelma addressed herself to an official with a gold band round his hat.
"Can you tell me," she asked timidly, "where I shall take a ticket for Hull?"
The man glanced at the fair, anxious face, and smiled good-humoredly.
"You've come to the wrong station, miss," he said. "You want the Midland line."
"The Midland?" Thelma felt more bewildered than ever.
"Yes,--the Midland," he repeated rather testily. "It's a good way from here--you'd better take a cab."
She moved away,--but started and drew herself back into a shadowed corner, coloring deeply as the sound of a rich, mellifluous voice, which she instantly recognized, smote suddenly on her ears.
"And as I before remarked, my good fellow," the voice was saying, "I am not a disciple of the semi-obscure. If a man has a thought which is worth declaring, let him declare it with a free and noble utterance--don't let him wrap it up in multifarious parcels of dreary verbosity! There's too much of that kind of thing going on nowadays--in England, at least. There's a kind of imitation of art which isn't art at all,--a morbid, bilious, bad imitation. You only get close to the real goddess in Italy. I wish I could persuade you to come and pass the winter with me there?"