The advent of Eliza had sunk into less significance in his mind by the time he heard the engine’s warning bell.  He turned and looked into the car.  There sat the man whom he had left, but not the same man; a new existence seemed to have started into life in his thin sinewy frame, and to be looking out through the weather-beaten visage.  This man, fond and happy, was actually addressing a glance of arch amusement at the girl who, flushed and disconcerted, sought to busy herself by rearranging his possessions.  So quickly did it seem that Bates had travelled from one extreme of life to another that Alec felt no doubt as to the kindly triumph in the eye.  Explanation he had none.  He stepped off the jolting car.

“Is she coming out?” he asked the conductor.

“No, she ain’t,” said a Chellaston man who stood near at hand.  “She’s got her trunk in the baggage car, and she’s got her ticket for Quebec, she has.  She’s left the hotel, and left old Hutchins in the lurch—­that’s what she’s done.”

The train was moving quicker.  The conductor had jumped aboard.  Alec was just aware that all who were left on the platform were gossiping about Eliza’s departure when he was suddenly spurred into violent movement by the recollection that he had absently retained in his possession Bates’s ticket and the change of the note given him to buy it with.  To run and swing himself on to the last car was a piece of vigorous action, but once again upon the small rear porch and bound perforce for the next station, he gave only one uncomfortable glance through the glass door and turned once more to the prospect of the long level track.  Who could mention a railway ticket and small change to a man so recently beatified?

The awkwardness of his position, a shyness that came over him at the thought that they must soon see him and wonder why he was there, suggested the wonder why he had desired that Bates should be happy; now that he saw him opulent in happiness, as it appeared, above all other men, he felt only irritation—­first, at the sort of happiness that could be derived from such a woman, and secondly, at the contrast between this man’s fulness and his own lack.  What had Bates done that he was to have all that he wanted?

It is an easier and less angelic thing to feel sympathy with sorrow than with joy.

In a minute or two it was evident they had seen him, for he heard the door slide and Bates came out on the little platform.  He had gone into the car feebly; he came out with so easy a step and holding himself so erect, with even a consequential pose, that a gleam of derision shot through the younger man’s mind, even though he knew with the quick knowledge of envy that it was for the sake of the woman behind the door that the other was now making the most of himself.

Alec gave what he had to give; it was not his place to make comment.

Bates counted the change with a care that perhaps was feigned.  If he stood very straight, his hard hand trembled.