Renfrew does not bask in his glory but rather shushes them, rushes them out, onto the platform and out of the station, where their row of coaches is waiting for them. The weather is milder than it has been in days, a warm wind blowing from the west, the snow slowly melting and catching the streetlights in puddles.

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Renfrew does not ride back with the teachers. Instead he climbs into Charlie and Thomas’s coach. He takes his seat between them as though he were but another boy; butts in, lifting his suit tails, so they are forced to scoot apart. Immediately all conversation dies. The slush outside makes progress slow as each revolution of the wheels requires extra effort from the horses, and the gentle rocking coupled with the warmth of their recent bath sends them asleep one by one. Charlie feels cut off from Thomas by their teacher’s rigid form and is too self-conscious to lean across Renfrew to see whether his friend, too, has nodded off. He attempts to catch glimpses of Thomas from the corner of his eye, but all he can see are his legs, angled in front of him, the stillness of his feet, the hands that are spread out on Thomas’s thighs. He is so very motionless, in fact, and for so very long, that it comes as a surprise when Thomas speaks.

“Smoke is a disease,” he says.

It takes Charlie several moments to register the words are not for his benefit but for Renfrew’s, and that they form a question, not a statement.

Like Thomas, Renfrew speaks quietly, neither turning nor moving his limbs, his hands resting on the top of the walking stick that juts from between his knees. It occurs to Charlie that he has chosen to ride in their coach just for this, a conversation with Thomas.

“No,” says Renfrew. “Smoke is no more a disease than a fever is the flu. Both are symptoms.”

“Smoke is a symptom,” Thomas reiterates, slowly, carefully. “Either way. Smoke is not from God.”

Now Renfrew turns, bends down to Thomas, his voice warm and earnest. Charlie strains to understand, bending sideways with him, his cheek almost touching Renfrew’s coat.

“Why not?” he asks. “Measles are from God. Swinburne’s religion is outdated. Unenlightened. He does not understand that a scientist can have faith. That science is a form of worship.” Renfrew pauses. “But there is something else you want to ask, isn’t there?”

“If it is a disease. That for which Smoke is a symptom. Does it pass from father to son?”