Accosting a porter, "The Seafold platform?" he asked breathlessly.
"That tells me nothing. There's no luggage. Show me."
Before he had passed the barrier, he was aware that the train was crowded. In third-class compartments passengers were standing. To discover any one under these circumstances would be a labor of patience. Carriage-doors were being banged and locked. Even at this final moment his habitual caution reasserted itself. What else but folly could result from an adventure so recklessly undertaken?
The porter caught him by the arm. "'Ere you are, mister. 'Op in. You're lucky."
No sooner had he squeezed himself into the remaining seat than, with a groaning jerk, the train started.
Lucky! The luckiest thing that could have happened to him would have been to be left behind. Here he was, following a woman whose face he had not seen, to a place which, up to a few moments ago, he had not known existed. Even to believe that he was following her required optimism; he had no proof that she was on the train. Probably it had been part of her strategy to send him scurrying on this fool's errand, in order that her accomplices might be undisturbed while they ransacked his rooms in his absence.
"I'll make an end of this nonsense," he told himself, "by alighting at the next stopping-place."
But where was the next stopping-place? He glanced along the double row of his fellow-passengers, barricaded behind their papers. He wanted to ask his question and watched for an opportunity. At last, losing patience, he nudged the man beside him.
"Excuse me, sir; I'm a stranger. I've made a mistake. My ticket's to Seafold, wherever that may be, and I--"
With his nose still glued to the page, the man muttered: "That's all right. You don't need to worry. It's where you're going."
"But it isn't all right," Hindwood contradicted with a shade of annoyance. "I don't want to go to Seafold; I want to return to London. What I'm trying to ask you is where can I get out?"
"Why shouldn't I think it's worth while?"
The paper rustled testily and was raised a few inches higher. "Because Lewes is almost at Seafold. It's the junction where you change--the one and only stop between here and Brighton."
Turning away disgustedly, he watched the swiftly changing landscape. Everything that met his eyes was beautiful, with a domestic, thought-out, underlying tenderness. It had all been planned, that was what he felt, by the loving labor of countless generations. In a homeless man like himself the sight created a realization of forlornness. He had traveled five continents and had planted his affections nowhere. It was the same with his human relations. He could reckon his acquaintances by the thousand, yet there was no one to whom he was indispensably dear. By a mental transition, the implication of which he scarcely appreciated, he began to think of Santa.