e women stared into the mist that had enfolded her, as though their
wishes might draw her back again. But in a little while they turned
towards home and a world that had changed its face.

* * * * *

On another day I went down to Liverpool to see the _Majestic_ depart
with troops for the front. The weather was consistently unkind. The
_Canada_ had sailed in a whirl of rainy fog, and the departing
passengers of the _Majestic_ looked across a little inky strip of water
to a land that was cloaked with snow. It was bitterly cold on the
landing-stage, and all the interest of the scene could not keep the
bitter wind from whipping one's face and numbing the feet. The wooden
planks resounded not more with the tramp of marching feet than with the
hard stampings of people who were trying to restore circulation. There
were no very poor people on the stage. The space opposite to the ship
was occupied chiefly by the friends of officers and by the troops
themselves, and certainly it seemed kinder to the men to prevent the
dreadful scrambling for farewells that took place when the _Canada_
sailed. But a sea of anxious faces pressed against the barriers at
either end of the reserved space, and no doubt there was much bitter
envy of us in the enclosure, who had so much better an opportunity, and
perhaps so much less reasonable a claim to the front places.

Outwardly this departure seemed very different from that of the
_Canada_. It was not so sordid, if one may use the term; the vessel did
not slip away furtively from a dock in the small hours of the morning,
but departed in open day from the more accessible landing-stage; and
although the weather was chill and bitter, it had not that infinitely
dreary effect upon the spirits that one associates with a soaking
downpour. Here were all the pomps and circumstances of farewell--the
blowing of bands and wavings of caps and great shouts of a multitude
that must give vent to acute emotions. Yet, different though the
outward circumstances were, they only accentuated the likeness that lay
beneath. Good-bye is good-bye, whether we say it at a carriage window or
shout it across a strip of harbour water; whether a crowd sings "Auld
Lang Syne" or a mother whispers "Don't forget me." And at the sailing of
the _Majestic_, with all its dignity, one saw the same tragedies
repeated over and over again, until one's heart sickened of it all, and
one would gladly have come a