And the
nostalgia, the doom of homecoming went through her veins like a drug. His
eternal face, flame-lit now! The pulse and darkness of red fire from the
furnace towers in the sky, lighting the desultory, industrial crowd on
the wayside station, lit him and went out.
Of course he did not see her. Flame-lit and unseeing! Always the same,
with his meeting eyebrows, his common cap, and his red-and-black scarf
knotted round his throat. Not even a collar to meet her! The flames had
sunk, there was shadow.
She opened the door of her grimy, branch-line carriage, and began to get
down her bags. The porter was nowhere, of course, but there was Harry,
obscure, on the outer edge of the little crowd, missing her, of course.
'Here! Harry!' she called, waving her umbrella in the twilight. He
hurried forward.
'Tha's come, has ter?' he said, in a sort of cheerful welcome. She got
down, rather flustered, and gave him a peck of a kiss.
'Two suit-cases!' she said.
Her soul groaned within her, as he clambered into the carriage after her
bags. Up shot the fire in the twilight sky, from the great furnace behind
the station. She felt the red flame go across her face. She had come
back, she had come back for good. And her spirit groaned dismally. She
doubted if she could bear it.
There, on the sordid little station under the furnaces, she stood, tall
and distinguished, in her well-made coat and skirt and her broad grey
velour hat.
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