Overnight, we had given him a farewell dinner, in which sadness was
well mingled with festivity. Years probably would elapse before his
return. Some of us might never see him again. Not ignoring the shadow
of the future, we gaily celebrated the past. We were as thankful to
have known our guest as we were grieved to lose him; and both these
emotions were made evident. It was a perfect farewell.

And now, here we were, stiff and self-conscious on the platform; and,
framed in the window of the railway-carriage, was the face of our
friend; but it was as the face of a stranger--a stranger anxious to
please, an appealing stranger, an awkward stranger. `Have you got
everything?' asked one of us, breaking a silence. `Yes, everything,'
said our friend, with a pleasant nod. `Everything,' he repeated, with
the emphasis of an empty brain. `You'll be able to lunch on the
train,' said I, though this prophecy had already been made more than
once. `Oh yes,' he said with conviction. He added that the train went
straight through to Liverpool. This fact seemed to strike us as rather
odd. We exchanged glances. `Doesn't it stop at Crewe?' asked one of
us. `No,' said our friend, briefly. He seemed almost disagreeable.
There was a long pause. One of us, with a nod and a forced smile at
the traveller, said `Well!' The nod, the smile, and the unmeaning
monosyllable, were returned conscientiously. Another pause was broken
by one of us with a fit of coughing. It was an obviously assumed fit,
but it served to pass the time. The bustle of the platform was
unabated. There was no sign of the train's departure. Release--ours,
and our friend's--was not yet.

My wandering eye alighted on a rather portly middle-aged man who was
talking earnestly from the platform to a young lady at the next window
but one to ours. His fine profile was vaguely familiar to me. The