feel very cold and strange. I went on talking. But, also, I went on--quite
separately--thinking. The suspicion wasn't a certainty. This mother and
daughter were always together. What was to befall the one might
anywhere--anywhere--befall the other. But a like fate, in an equally near
future, was in store for that other lady. The coincidence was curious,
very. Here we all were together--here, they and I--I who was narrowly to
escape, so soon now, what they, so soon now, were to suffer. Oh, there
was an inference to be drawn. Not a sure inference, I told myself. And
always I was talking, talking, and the train was swinging and swaying
noisily along--to what? It was a fast train. Our carriage was near the
engine. I was talking loudly. Full well I had known what I should see in
the colonel's hands. I told myself I had not known. I told myself that
even now the thing I dreaded was not sure to be. Don't think I was
dreading it for myself. I wasn't so 'lamentable' as all that--now. It was
only of them that I thought--only for them. I hurried over the colonel's
character and career; I was perfunctory. It was Brett's hands that I
wanted. THEY were the hands that mattered. If THEY had
the marks-- Remember, Brett was to start for India in the coming week,
his wife was to remain in England. They would be apart. Therefore--

"And the marks were there. And I did nothing--nothing but hold
forth on the subtleties of Brett's character. There was a thing for
me to do. I wanted to do it. I wanted to spring to the window and pull
the communication-cord. Quite a simple thing to do. Nothing easier
than to stop a train. You just give a sharp pull, and the train slows down,
comes to a standstill. And the guard appears at your window. You
explain to the guard.

"Nothing easier than to tell him there is going to be a collision.
Nothing easier than to insist that you and your friends and every other