It was raining hard, and bitterly cold. Only part of the platform was
roofed in, and every now and then a gust of wind splashed the raindrops
into their faces as they stood beside Ideala's luggage in a circle of
yellow light cast upwards by a lantern which the inspector had put on
the ground at their feet.
"There's me and Tom, the porter," he said at last; "we've got to wait
for the two o'clock down and the four o'clock up. Tom, he'll come 'ome
and sit over the kitchen fire with me. I suppose, now, you wouldn't
like to do that?"
"Indeed I should be very glad to," Ideala answered; "that is," she
added quickly, "if it would not inconvenience you."
He made an inexplicable gesture, and seemed to consider the matter
settled.
"I'll just put this here luggage in the office," he said, shouldering a
box and taking up a portmanteau; but he muttered as he went: "It's a
pity, now, you wasn't luggage."
Ideala followed him meekly from the luggage-office out into the lane,
and down a country path to a little cottage. The door opened into the
kitchen, and a young man in a porter's uniform was sitting over a
cheery fire reading a newspaper by the light of a tallow candle.
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