The Womb of Time, page 18
Halsted could not help regretting the fact that he could no more trust Rylands’ judgment, at present, than his own. As Rylands waved to him from behind the window of the moving carriage, however, he tipped his hat very politely, and bade his academic rival farewell in the warmest fashion that he could contrive. Then he went back to the waiting room to join Wychelow.
He would feel safe, he thought, in Wychelow’s company—for a matter of hours, at least. After they parted company in Reading, he simply would have to do his best to stand alone, even though he was fully convinced that there was a sense in which he would never be truly isolated again, however “dissipated” he might become.
He was convinced, too, although he did not intend ever to voice the conviction to any living man, or commit it to paper, that the company that would remain to him when the man who had seen the Holy Grail had gone his own way would not work at all to his advantage.
But even if I were dead and damned to Hell, Halsted thought, what alternative would I have but to endure my damnation as patiently as I can?
The End
Brian Stableford, The Womb of Time
