ay. "I
could have sworn that I felt her presence just for one second. It must
have been nonsense. This is what comes of occult influences, and that
kind of thing. The occult is a nuisance."

If he had only gone to Paddington!

CHAPTER XXVIII

I WILL WAIT FOR YOU

Beatrice drove back to Paddington, and as she drove, though her face did
not change from its marble cast of woe the great tears rolled down it,
one by one.

They reached the deserted-looking station, and she paid the man out of
her few remaining shillings--seeing that she was a stranger, he insisted
upon receiving half-a-crown. Then, disregarding the astonished stare
of a night porter, she found her way to the waiting room, and sat down.
First she took the letter from her breast, and added some lines to it
in pencil, but she did not post it yet; she knew that if she did so
it would reach its destination too soon. Then she laid her head back
against the wall, and utterly outworn, dropped to sleep--her last sleep
upon this earth, before the longest sleep of all.

And thus Beatrice waited and slept at Paddington, while her lover waited
and watched at Euston.

At five she woke, and the heavy cloud of sorrow, past, present, and to
come, rushed in upon her heart. Taking her bag, she made herself as tidy
as she could. Then she stepped outside the station into the deserted
street, and finding a space between the houses, watched the sun rise
over the waking world. It was her last sunrise, Beatrice remembered.

She came back filled with such thoughts as might well strike the heart
of a woman about to do the thing she had decreed. The refreshment bar
was open now, and she went to it, and bought a cup of coffee and some
bread and butter. Then she took her ticket, not to Bryngelly or to Coed,
but to the station on this side of Bryngelly, and three miles from it.
She would run less risk of being noticed there. The train was shunted
up; she took her seat in it. Just as it was starting, an early newspaper
boy came along, yawning. Beatrice bought a copy of the _Standard_, out
of the one and threepence that was left of her money, and opened it at
the sheet containing the leading articles. The first one began, "The
most powerful, closely reasoned, and eloquent speech made last night by
Mr. Bingham, the Member for Pillham, will, we feel certain, produce as
great an effect on the country as it did in the House of Commons. We
welcome it, not only on account of its valu