We were still dazed, I think, for we wandered like two troubled
children, our one idea at first to get as far away as we could
from the horror behind us. We were both bareheaded, grimy, pallid
through the grit. Now and then we met little groups of country
folk hurrying to the track: they stared at us curiously, and some
wished to question us. But we hurried past them; we had put the
wreck behind us. That way lay madness.

Only once the girl turned and looked behind her. The wreck was
hidden, but the smoke cloud hung heavy and dense. For the first
time I remembered that my companion had not been alone on the train.

"It is quiet here," I suggested. "If you will sit down on the bank
I will go back and make some inquiries. I've been criminally
thoughtless. Your traveling companion--"

She interrupted me, and something of her splendid poise was gone.
"Please don't go back," she said. "I am afraid it would be of no
use. And I don't want to be left alone."

Heaven knows I did not want her to be alone. I was more than
content to walk along beside her aimlessly, for any length of time.
Gradually, as she lost the exaltation of the moment, I was gaining
my normal condition of mind. I was beginning to realize that I had
lacked the morning grace of a shave, that I looked like some lost
hope of yesterday, and that my left shoe pinched outrageously. A
man does not rise triumphant above such handicaps. The girl, for
all her disordered hair and the crumpled linen of her waist, in
spite of her missing hat and the small gold bag that hung forlornly