nerves almost to breaking-point, and with return to a more normal state
of mind came the instinctive wish to help--to do something for those who
must be suffering so pitiably in the midst of that scarred heap of
wreckage on the line.

She scrambled to her feet and made her way nearer to the mass of crumpled
coaches that reared up black against the shimmer of the starlit sky. No
one took any notice of her; all who were unhurt were working to save and
help those who had been less fortunate, and every now and then some
broken wreck of humanity was carried past her, groaning horribly, or
still more horribly silent.

Suddenly a woman brushed against her--a young woman of the working
classes, her plump face sagging and mottled with terror, her eyes
staring, her clothes torn and dishevelled.

"My chiel, my li'l chiel!" she kept on muttering. "Wur be 'ee? Wur be
'ee?"

Reaching her through the dreadful strangeness of disaster, the soft Devon
dialect smote on Diana's ears with a sense of dear familiarity that was
almost painful. She laid her hand on the woman's arm.

"What is it?" she asked. "Have you lost your child?"

The woman looked at her vaguely, bewildered by the surrounding horror.

"Iss. Us dunnaw wur er's tu; er's dade, I reckon. Aw, my li'l, li'l
chiel!" And she rocked to and fro, clutching her shawl more closely
round her.

Diana put a few brief questions and elicited that the woman and her child
had both been taken unhurt out of a third-class carriage--of the ten
souls who had occupied the compartment the only ones to escape injury.

"I'll go and look for him," she told her. "I expect he has only strayed
away and lost sight of you amongst all these people. Four years old and
wearing a little red coat, did you say? I'll find him for you; you sit
down here." And she pushed the poor distraught creature down on a pile
of shattered woodwork. "Don't be frightened," she added reassuringly.
"I feel certain he's quite safe."

She disappeared into the throng, and after searching for a while came
face to face with her fellow traveller, carrying a chubby, red-coated
little boy in his arms. He stopped abruptly.

"What in the world are you doing?" he demanded angrily. "You've no
business here. Go back--you'll only see some ghastly sights if you come,
and you can't help. Why didn't you stay where I told you to?"

But Diana paid no heed.

"I want that child," she said eagerly, holding out her arms.