Meantime, Algernon retraced his way to the station in profound chagrin:
arriving there just as the train was visible. He caught sight of the
cart with Master Gammon in it, and asked him whether all his people were
going up to London; but the reply was evidently a mile distant, and had
not started; so putting a sovereign in Master Gammon's hand, together
with the reins of his horse, Algernon bade the old man conduct the animal
to the White Bear Inn, and thus violently pushing him off the tramways of
his intelligence, left him stranded.

He had taken a first-class return-ticket, of course, being a gentleman.
In the desperate hope that he might jump into a carriage with Rhoda, he
entered one of the second-class compartments; a fact not only foreign to
his tastes and his habits, but somewhat disgraceful, as he thought. His
trust was, that the ignoble of this earth alone had beheld him: at any
rate, his ticket was first class, as the guard would instantly and
respectfully perceive, and if he had the discomforts, he had also some of
the consolations of virtue.

Once on his way, the hard seat and the contemptible society surrounding
him, assured his reflective spirit that he loved: otherwise, was it in
reason that he should endure these hardships? "I really love the girl,"
he said, fidgeting for cushions.

He was hot, and wanted the window up, to which his fellow-travellers
assented. Then, the atmosphere becoming loaded with offence to his
morbid sense of smell, he wanted the windows down; and again they
assented. "By Jove! I must love the girl," ejaculated Algernon inwardly,
as cramp, cold, and afflicted nostrils combined to astonish his physical
sensations. Nor was it displeasing to him to evince that he was
unaccustomed to bare boards.