Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 42).djvu/491

[Judith Lee, as readers of the previous stories are already aware, is a teacher of the deaf and dumb by the oral system, and therefore the fortunate possessor of the gift of reading words as they issue from people's lips, a gift which gives her a place apart in fiction.]

his gift of mine of entering into people's confidence, even against their will, has occasionally placed me in the most uncomfortable situations. Take, for instance, what I will call the Affair of the Pleasure Cruise, or Matched.

The story began at Charing Cross Station. I had just entered the station and was looking about for the platform from which my train was going to start, when I saw one man hurrying up to another. I do not know what it was which caused him to catch my eye, unless it was that he was in such desperate haste, and was so covered with freckles, and had such a very red moustache; but I distinctly saw him say to the other—what he meant I had not the dimmest notion; some of the language he used was strange:—

"She's done a bunk all right, and is away with the best of the swag. Here's her brief." He handed to the other man what looked to me like a Continental railway-ticket. "I don't fancy the bloke is going; you'll have to go on and get the lot out the other end. It's worth having, you know; we'll be able to plant it easily. You understand? Move yourself; the train's just starting."

The man addressed did move himself, tearing through a gate over which was a board inscribed "Folkestone Harbour and Continent." His doing so made me think of Mr. Brookes. I had been to his wedding that morning, and had, indeed, only just come away from the reception which followed. I had gathered that he and his bride were to travel by that boat-train.

Thinking thus about the bride and bridegroom, who, since the train had started, I took it for granted were already on their way, what was my surprise to see coming through the wicket on to the platform which the boat-train had just quitted—Mr. Everard Brookes! He had discarded the orthodox "frocker" in which he had been married, and in which I had seen him last, for a grey tweed suit—but it was he. And he seemed to be in a state of great disturbance, as if he were looking for someone he could not find. A railway official was on either side of him, each of whom seemed doing his best to calm his obvious agitation. What struck me as the strangest part of it was that he was alone. An idea occurred to me as I walked towards him.

"Mr. Brookes," I asked, "have you missed your train? You haven't let your wife go off alone?"

"She hasn't gone on alone," he rejoined. "She isn't in the train at all."

"She might have been in the train, you know, sir," struck in one of the officials. "It's not easy to make out everyone who's travelling in a long train like that."

Mr. Brookes turned on him with a show of anger which I knew was quite foreign to his character.

"I tell you I saw her go through the gate as clearly as I see you now, but though I watched for her to come back she never returned, although I never once took my