pipes dimmed the light of the lamp. The quiet sounds of their talk and
movements never entirely took from them the consciousness of the large
dark silence that lay without. No footfall broke it. When they heard the
distant rush of the night train, they all three went out to see its
great yellow eye come nearer and nearer.

Trenholme had one or two packages to put in the van. He and his
companions exchanged greetings with the men of the train.

Just as he was handing in his last package, a gentlemanly voice accosted
him.

"Station-master!" said a grey-haired, military-looking traveller,
"Station-master! Is there any way of getting milk here?"

A lady stood behind the gentleman. They were both on the platform at the
front of a passenger car.

"It's for a child, you know," explained the gentleman.

Trenholme remembered his untouched tea, and confessed to the possession
of a little milk.

"Oh, hasten, hasten!" cried the lady, "for the guard says the train will
move on in a moment."

As Trenholme knew that the little French conductor thus grandly quoted
did not know when the train would start, and as in his experience the
train, whatever else it did, never hastened, he did not move with the
sudden agility that was desired. Before he turned he heard a