Charles went to the cabinet, produced another bunch of keys, unlocked it, and brought out a bottle of bourbon. ‘You know, Collis,’ he said, filling up two glasses, ‘you really ought to take it easier. You don’t look well.’

‘I’m not sick,’ said Collis.

‘Maybe you’re not now, but if you go on pushing yourself this way, you soon will be. You mark my words, if you keep working as hard as you are now, without a let-up, then you’re going to be lying in your grave by the time you’re forty.’

Collis sat down and took his drink. ‘Do you really think that matters?’ he asked Charles.

Charles sat down beside him. ‘Of course it matters. You’re the inspiration behind the whole of this railroad. You’ve changed the history of this nation in a matter of a few years, almost single-handed. How can you say it doesn’t matter?’

‘Hannah should have been here today, Charles. Hannah and two young children of mine.’

Charles looked uncomfortable. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That’s the way life is.’

Collis put down his glass and rested his head in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was graver and more measured than Charles had ever heard it.

‘I want to finish this railroad, Charles, because I can’t go back. But if there was any way in which I could trade this railroad, and all its locomotives, and all its ties and its spikes and its rails — if there was any way in which I could trade this railroad for one day with Hannah, one more day with Hannah, then I would do it gladly.’

He lifted his head, and when he did so, Charles was shocked to see that he was crying.

‘I was prepared to see people die for the sake of this railroad. I was prepared to ruin people’s reputations, their happiness, their whole lives. That was the price of progress, I thought. You can’t make omelettes without cracking eggs. Well, it’s true, you can’t. But of course I wasn’t bright enough to understand that it wasn’t I who was in charge of cracking the eggs. It was God, or the destiny of America, or whatever you like to call it, and I was just as vulnerable to the twists and turns of this destiny as everybody else.’

He took out his handkerchief again and blew his nose. ‘I’ve lost everything, Charles. I’ve lost more than a man can reasonably be expected to bear. And this railroad is nothing more nor less than a monument to my vanity and my pride and my human foolishness.’

‘Collis — you’re tired,’ Charles said softly.

‘Yes,’ said Collis, ‘I’m tired. But I’m not mad.’