upreme, when from one of the smaller doors
there glides, with soft, almost noiseless step, the figure of a woman.

She wore a long gray cloak that entirely shrouded her figure; a black
veil hid her face so completely that not one feature could be seen. When
she entered the station the change from the blinding glare outside to
the shade within seemed to bewilder her. She stood for a few moments
perfectly motionless; then she looked around her in a cautious, furtive
manner, as though she would fain see if there was any one she
recognized.

But in that busy crowd every one was intent on his or her business; no
one had any attention to spare for her. She went with the same noiseless
step to the booking office. Most of the passengers had taken their
tickets; she was one of the very last. She looked at the clerk in a
vague, helpless way.

"Where to, ma'am?" he asked, for she had only said, "I want a ticket."

"Where to?" she repeated. "Where does the train stop?"

"It will stop at Chester and Crewe."

"Then give me a ticket for Crewe," she said, and, with a smile on his
face, the clerk complied. She took the ticket and he gave her the
change. She swept it into her purse with an absent, preoccupied manner,
and he turned with a smile to one of his fellow-clerks, touching his
forehead significantly.

"She is evidently on the road for Colney Hatch," he observed. "If I had
said the train would stop at Liliput, in my opinion she would have said,
'Give me a ticket for there.'"

But the object of his remarks, all unconscious of them, had gone on to
the platform. With the same appearance of not wishing to be seen, she
looked into the carriages.

There was one almost empty; she entered it, took her seat in the corner,
drew her veil still more closely over her face, and never raised her
eyes.

A quarter past three; the bell rings loudly. There is a shrill whistle,
and then, slowly at first, the train moves out of the station. A few
minutes more, and the long walls, the numerous arches, are all left
behind, and they are out in the blinding sunlight, hurrying through the
clear, golden day as though life and death depended upon its speed. On,
on, past the green meadows, where the hedgerows were filled with
woodbines and wild roses, and the clover filled the air with fragrance;
past gray old churches whose tapering spires pointed to heaven; past
quiet homesteads sleeping in the sunshine; past silent, quaint villages
and towns;