‘A lot of people have died,’ Collis said in a husky voice. ‘There was Kathleen Mary, at the Monument Hotel, and there was my father, and then there was Wang-Pu. A lot of people have suffered, too, and I’m sorry about that. Hannah suffered, and Delphine suffered, and I guess my mother suffered, as well. I just hope that You’re guiding me, Lord. I just hope that whatever it is I’m doing, You’re still there, holding my hand, because if it all came to nothing, if we never built the railroad, well, I don’t know what the hell it would all have been for. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say “hell”.’

He waited for a few minutes longer. He could hear excursionists laughing outside, and somebody blowing a slide whistle.

‘Stay with me, Lord,’ he whispered at last. ‘If that isn’t too impertinent; after everything I’ve done. So many people seem to depend on me. So many people seem to be waiting for what I’m going to do. It’s a hell of a lot to carry, all on your own.’

He looked up at the crucifix on the adobe wall. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He didn’t know what else God expected to hear. He lowered his eyes to the wooden floor. The pampas grass rustled outside the open door.

He left the church and walked for a while among the gravestones. He stood for almost five minutes in front of a marker which read:

Ici reposent Athalie Baudichon avec Charles et Blanche ses deux Enfants trois victimes de l’horrible explosion du Steamboat Jenny Lind le 11 Avril 1853. Priez pour eux.

He felt saddened, and suddenly tired. He went and sat for a while at the front of the Mission, on a rough stone wall, only a few feet away from the flagstaff.

Four o’clock came. A few high cirrus clouds shadowed the sun. Collis reached in his pocket and found that he was out of cheroots. Four crushed-out butts lay in the white dust at his feet. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and whistled tunelessly between his teeth. He knew she wasn’t coming. Not this late. Not at five after four. If she’d really wanted to come, she would have been here at three.

Some of the day-trippers began to gather up their bags and their picnic baskets and make their way towards the Yellow Line coaches. A breeze whipped up the dust and set the flag pulleys clanking dolefully against the flagstaff. A Spanish priest walked across the courtyard, his head bent, and Collis watched him until he was out of sight.