she seemed
to know that it was not her father, but someone--someone--then no more,
no more at all.

IX

She was awakened by the scream of an engine, and looked around her
amazed. Her neck had fallen sideways while she slept, and felt horridly
stiff; her head ached, and she was shivering. She saw by the clock that
it was past five. 'If only I could get some tea!' she thought. 'Anyway I
won't stay here any longer!' When she had washed, and rubbed some of
the stiffness out of her neck, the tea renewed her sense of adventure
wonderfully. Her train did not start for an hour; she had time for a
walk, to warm herself, and went down to the river. There was an early
haze, and all looked a little mysterious; but people were already
passing on their way to work. She walked along, looking at the water
flowing up under the bright mist to which the gulls gave a sort of
hovering life. She went as far as Blackfriars Bridge, and turning back,
sat down on a bench under a plane-tree, just as the sun broke through.
A little pasty woman with a pinched yellowish face was already sitting
there, so still, and seeming to see so little, that Noel wondered of
what she could be thinking. While she watched, the woman's face began
puckering, and tears rolled slowly, down, trickling from pucker to
pucker, till, summoning up her courage, Noel sidled nearer, and said:

"Oh! What's the matter?"

The tears seemed to stop from sheer surprise; little grey eyes gazed
round, patient little eyes from above an almost bridgeless nose.

"I'ad a baby. It's dead.... its father's dead in France.... I was goin'
in the water, but I didn't like the look of it, and now I never will."

That "Now I never will," moved Noel terribly. She slid her arm along the
back of the bench and clasped the skinniest of shoulders.

"Don't cry!"

"It was my first. I'm thirty-eight. I'll never 'ave another. Oh! Why
didn't I go in the water?"

The face puckered again, and the squeezed-out tears ran down. 'Of course
she must cry,' thought Noel; 'cry and cry till it feels better.' And she
stroked the shoulder of the little woman, whose emotion was disengaging
the scent of old clothes.

"The father of my baby was killed in France, too," she said at last. The
little sad grey eyes looked curiously round.

"Was 'e? 'Ave you got your baby still?"

"Yes, oh, yes!"

"I'm glad of that. It 'urts so bad, it does. I'd rather lose me 'usband
than me baby, any day." The sun was shi