hurt her to an almost incredible degree. Nothing had ever so wounded
her, and she felt the longing common to reserved people to hide her pain
from everybody.

So she had escaped from the Rue Victor Hugo under pretext of a headache,
and, bidding Felicite and Theo good-night, hastened back here, not
allowing the young man to accompany her, as he desired.

"I am very seedy," she told him, "and my head aches; I shall be better
alone."

So Theo, with the biddableness that was an integral and to her rather
annoying quality of his character, had said no more, and returned to the
other guests. The gaily attired chambermaid, bearing a small jug
destined to strike dismay to some British admirers of the Conqueror, met
the girl on the stairs.

"_Bon soir_, mademoiselle," she said; "there's a telegram for you in
your _salon_."

Brigit stood still. A telegram! Bad news probably. And such was her
mental turmoil that at the thought she shrugged her shoulders. Almost
anything that would change the nature of her trouble would be welcome.

But the contents of the telegram were bad.

"Tommy very ill. Diphtheria. Wants you.
"Mother."

Tommy ill! Poor little boy, with all his joy of life and enthusiasms,
struck down by diphtheria! Why could it not be she instead?

But it was not the girl's nature to waste time in useless reflections
when any possible course of action lay before her.

Ringing, she sent for M. Berton, the proprietor, and finding that a
train left in half an hour, threw her belongings into her box and a few
minutes later was in a ramshackle cab clattering stationwards. She left
a note for Theo, but she was sincerely glad that time was too short for
her to make any attempt to see either him or Joyselle. They had faded
into the background of her mind, and in the foreground stood, piteous
and appealing, poor little Tommy.

It was a gruesome journey, never to be forgotten, and made more bearable
by several little acts of kindness on the part of her fellow-travellers,
as such journeys are apt to be.

Brigit never again saw the fat Jewish commercial traveller who rushed
from the train at some station, and nearly missed the train in his
efforts, successful at last, to get her some tea; but she never forgot
him. Neither did she ever forget a woman in shabby mourning who
insisted on giving her a packet of somebody's incomparable milk
chocolate.

And for hours and h