ning now on a cheek of that
terribly patient face; its brightness seemed cruel perching there.

"Can I do anything to help you?" Noel murmured.

"No, thank you, miss. I'm goin' 'ome now. I don't live far. Thank you
kindly." And raising her eyes for one more of those half-bewildered
looks, she moved away along the Embankment wall. When she was out of
sight, Noel walked back to the station. The train was in, and she took
her seat. She had three fellow passengers, all in khaki; very silent and
moody, as men are when they have to get up early. One was tall, dark,
and perhaps thirty-five; the second small, and about fifty, with
cropped, scanty grey hair; the third was of medium height and quite
sixty-five, with a long row of little coloured patches on his tunic, and
a bald, narrow, well-shaped head, grey hair brushed back at the sides,
and the thin, collected features and drooping moustache of the old
school. It was at him that Noel looked. When he glanced out of the
window, or otherwise retired within himself, she liked his face; but
when he turned to the ticket-collector or spoke to the others, she did
not like it half so much. It was as if the old fellow had two selves,
one of which he used when alone, the other in which he dressed every
morning to meet the world. They had begun to talk about some Tribunal on
which they had to sit. Noel did not listen, but a word or two carried to
her now and then.

"How many to-day?" she heard the old fellow ask, and the little cropped
man answering: "Hundred and fourteen."

Fresh from the sight of the poor little shabby woman and her grief, she
could not help a sort of shrinking from that trim old soldier, with his
thin, regular face, who held the fate of a "Hundred and fourteen" in
his firm, narrow grasp, perhaps every day. Would he understand their
troubles or wants? Of course he wouldn't! Then, she saw him looking at
her critically with his keen eyes. If he had known her secret, he would
be thinking: 'A lady and act like that! Oh, no! Quite-quite out of the
question!' And she felt as if she could, sink under the seat with shame.
But no doubt he was only thinking: 'Very young to be travelling by
herself at this hour of the morning. Pretty too!' If he knew the real
truth of her--how he would stare! But why should this utter stranger,
this old disciplinarian, by a casual glance, by the mere form of his
face, make her feel more guilty and ashamed than she had yet felt? That
puzzled h