I had forgotten him, we had all forgotten him, his own lady had forgotten him.

I withdrew from the struggling, noisy group and stepped back to his side.

It was then that, as I now most clearly remember, I was conscious of something else, was aware that there was a strange faint blue light in the dark clumsy station, a faint throbbing glow, that, like the reflection of blue water on a sunlit ceiling, hovered and hung above the ugly shabbiness of the engines and trucks, the rails with scattered pieces of paper here and there, the iron arms that supported the vast glass roof, the hideous funnel that hung with its gaping mouth above the water-tank.

The faint blue light was the spring evening--the spring evening that, encouraged by God knows what brave illusion, had penetrated even these desperate fastnesses.

A little breeze accompanied it and the dirty pieces of paper blew to and fro; then suddenly a shaft of light quivered upon the blackness, quivered and spread like a golden fan, then flooded the huge cave with trembling ripples of light.