n
that the dark cloth showed disreputable stains and splashes of her night's
exposure. Hastily she took her handkerchief from her pocket to remove the
tell-tale marks. As she did so a bit of buff cardboard fluttered on to the
gravel at her feet. She stooped and picked it up. It was the return half
of her ticket to Cornwall.

The remembrance of her arrival at Paddington revived in her as she looked
at it--the fright she had had when the ticket collector caught her by the
arm to return half of the whole ticket she had given up. She had put the
ticket in the pocket of her jacket and never thought of it again. Had Fate
decreed her original mistake of taking a return ticket when she needed
only a single one? She was at that moment inclined to think so.

The question of its use was decided as soon as she saw it. The ticket
would take her back to Cornwall and Thalassa. Thalassa would help and
shield her.

The gilt hands of a church clock opposite the square pointed to half-past
eight. She knew that the morning express for Cornwall started shortly
after ten, but she did not know what part of London she was in or the
direction of Paddington. Animated by a new hope, she left her seat and
asked the cabman for directions.

The cabman looked at her with a ruminating eye. That eye, with
unfathomable perspicacity, seemed to pry into her empty pockets and pierce
her penniless state. He did not ask her if she wanted to be driven there,
but intimated with a shake of his grey head that Paddington was a goodish
walk. Then he gave her directions for finding it--implicit and repeated
directions, as though his all-seeing eye had also divined that she was a
stranger to the ways of London.

Sisily thanked him and turned away, repeating his directions so that she
should not have to ask anybody else. First to the right, second to the
left, along Tottenham Court Road to Oxford Street, up Oxford Street to
Edgeware Road, down Edgeware Road to Praed Street--so it ran. She followed
them carefully, and found herself on Paddington station a quarter of an
hour before the departure of the express.

She entered a third-class carriage, but sat in a corner seat, longing for
the train to move out. The minutes dragged slowly, and passengers kept
thronging in. All sorts of people seemed to have business in Cornwall at
that late season of the year. They came hurrying along in groups looking
for vacant compartments. Sisily kept an eager eye upon the late ar