Sometimes he could see the white road-track miles away, and he strained his eyes in observing it.

Twice or thrice he was deceived; a carriage came towards him, and with agitation he waited to see its occupants, only to be disappointed by strange faces.
There are few things more pathetic than persistency in hope due to ignorance of something that has befallen beyond our ken.

It is one of those instances of the irony inherent in human fate which move at once to tears and bitter laughter; the waste of emotion, the involuntary folly, the cruel deception caused by limit of faculties--how they concentrate into an hour or a day the essence of life itself! He walked on and on; as well do this as go back and loiter fretfully at the hotel.

He got as far as the Capo d' Orso, the headland half-way between Amalfi and Salerno, and there sat down by the wayside to rest.
From this point Salerno was first visible, in the far distance, between the sea and the purple Apennines.
Either Elgar was not coming, or he had lingered long between the two portions of his journey.
Mallard turned back; if the carriage came, it would overtake him.

He plodded slowly, the evening falling around him in still loveliness, fragrance from the groves of orange and lemon spread on every motion of the air.
And if he did not come?
That must have some strange meaning.