The boy came for the money mistrustfully, and ran off with it as fast as he could.  Smilash went into the chalet and never reappeared.  Instead, Trefusis, a gentleman in an ulster, carrying a rug, came out, locked the door, and hurried along the road to Lyvern, where he was picked up by the trap, and carried swiftly to the railway station, just in time to catch the London train.

“Evening paper, sir?” said a voice at the window, as he settled himself in the corner of a first-class carriage.

“No, thank you.”

“Footwarmer, sir?” said a porter, appearing in the news-vender’s place.

“Ah, that’s a good idea.  Yes, let me have a footwarmer.”

The footwarmer was brought, and Trefusis composed himself comfortably for his journey.  It seemed very short to him; he could hardly believe, when the train arrived in London, that he had been nearly three hours on the way.

There was a sense of Christmas about the travellers and the people who were at the terminus to meet them.  The porter who came to the carriage door reminded Trefusis by his manner and voice that the season was one at which it becomes a gentleman to be festive and liberal.

“Wot luggage, sir?  Hansom or fourweoll, sir?”

For a moment Trefusis felt a vagabond impulse to resume the language of Smilash and fable to the man of hampers of turkey and plum-pudding in the van.  But he repressed it, got into a hansom, and was driven to his father-in-law’s house in Belsize Avenue, studying in a gloomily critical mood the anxiety that surged upon him and made his heart beat like a boy’s as he drew near his destination.  There were two carriages at the door when he alighted.  The reticent expression of the coachmen sent a tremor through him.

The door opened before he rang.  “If you please, sir,” said the maid in a low voice, “will you step into the library; and the doctor will see you immediately.”

On the first landing of the staircase two gentlemen were speaking to Mr. Jansenius, who hastily moved out of sight, not before a glimpse of his air of grief 174 and discomfiture had given Trefusis a strange twinge, succeeded by a sensation of having been twenty years a widower.  He smiled unconcernedly as he followed the girl into the library, and asked her how she did.  She murmured some reply and hurried away, thinking that the poor young man would alter his tone presently.

He was joined at once by a gray whiskered gentleman, scrupulously dressed and mannered.  Trefusis introduced himself, and the physician looked at him with some interest.  Then he said: 

“You have arrived too late, Mr. Trefusis.  All is over, I am sorry to say.”

“Was the long railway journey she took in this cold weather the cause of her death?”

Some bitter words that the physician had heard upstairs made him aware that this was a delicate question.  But he said quietly:  “The proximate cause, doubtless.  The proximate cause.”