mbers were creaking, and the Liverpool women
were asleep.

SEVENTY-NINTH CHAPTER

At eight o'clock next morning I was in the train leaving Liverpool for
London.

I had selected a second-class compartment labelled "For Ladies," and my
only travelling companion was a tall fair woman, in a seal-skin coat and
a very large black hat. She had filled the carriage with the warm odour
of eau-de-Cologne and the racks on both sides with her luggage, which
chiefly consisted of ladies' hat boxes of various shapes and sizes.

Hardly had we started when I realised that she was a very loquacious and
expansive person.

Was I going all the way? Yes? Did I live in Liverpool? No? In London
perhaps? No? Probably I lived in the country? Yes? That was charming,
the country being so lovely.

I saw in a moment that if my flight was to be carried out to any purpose
I should have to conceal my identity; but how to do so I did not know,
my conscience never before having had to accuse me of deliberate
untruth.

Accident helped me. My companion asked me what was my husband's
profession, and being now accustomed to think of Martin as my real
husband, I answered that he was a commander.

"You mean the commander of a ship?"

"Yes."

"Ah, yes, you've been staying in Liverpool to see him off on a voyage.
How sweet! Just what I should do myself if my husband were a sailor."

Then followed a further battery of perplexing questions.

Had my husband gone on a long voyage? Yes? Where to? The South. Did I
mean India, Australia, New Zealand? Yes, and still farther.

"Ah, I see," she said again. "He's probably the captain of a tramp
steamer, and will go from port to port as long as he can find a cargo."

Hardly understanding what my companion meant by this, I half agreed to
it, and then followed a volley of more personal inquiries.

I was young to be married, wasn't I? Probably I hadn't been married
very long, had I? And not having settled myself in a home perhaps I was
going up to London to wait for my husband? Yes? How wise--town being so
much more cheerful than the country.

"Any friends there?"

"No."

"None whatever?"

"None whatever."

"But won't you be lonely by yourself in London?"

"A little lonely perhaps."

Being satisfied that she had found out everything about me, my
travelling companion (probably from the mere love of talking) told me
something about herself.

She was a fashionable milliner and had a shop in