On their walk home through the gathering gloom, Madeleine noticed the radical change in her father's manner. Instead of talking incessantly, as he usually did, he lapsed into a brooding silence.

'Is anything wrong, Father?' she asked.

'I'm afraid that it is.'

She was worried. 'You're not in trouble for taking me there, are you? I'd hate to think that I made things awkward for you.'

'It's nothing like that, Maddy,' he told her with an affectionate squeeze of her arm. 'In fact, it's nothing whatsoever to do with the LNWR. While you were drawing in there, Nat Ruggles passed on some disturbing news to me. There's been a bad accident.'

'Where?'

'On the Brighton line.'

'What happened?'

'According to Nat, there was a collision between two trains the other side of the Balcombe tunnel. I suppose the only consolation is that it happened in open country and not in the tunnel itself.'

'Nor on the Ouse Viaduct,' she noted.

'That would have been a terrible calamity, Maddy. If the viaduct was destroyed in a crash, the line would be closed indefinitely. Nobody would be able to take an excursion train to the seaside,' he pointed out. 'As it is, there are bound to be deaths and serious injuries. The Brighton Express would have been going at a fair speed and you know how poor the braking system is.' He showed a flash of temper. 'All that those brainless engineers think about is making trains go faster and faster. It's high time someone designed a means of stopping them.'

He fell silent again and Madeleine left him to his thoughts. She knew how upset he was at the news of any railway accidents.