I rose and walked unsteadily up the steep incline of the bridge. My mind was blank
wonder. My muscles and nerves seemed drained of their strength. I dare say I
staggered drunkenly. A head rose over the arch, and the figure of a workman
carrying a basket appeared. Beside him ran a little boy. He passed me, wishing
me good night. I was minded to speak to him, but did not. I answered his
greeting with a meaningless mumble and went on over the bridge.
Over the
Maybury arch a train, a billowing tumult of white, firelit smoke, and a long
caterpillar of lighted windows, went flying south--clatter, clatter, clap, rap,
and it had gone. A dim group of people talked in the gate of one of the houses
in the pretty little row of gables that was called Oriental Terrace. It was all
so real and so familiar. And that behind me! It was frantic, fantastic! Such
things, I told myself, could not be.
