go and help her, but he feared to startle or distress
her. If he had been a stranger he would not have hesitated, and he
wondered at the cruel indifference of the passers-by. They were mostly
laborers, draymen and porters, but at least they were men, and it made
his blood boil to see them passing her carelessly and almost jostling
her.

She got on board the boat, which was not crowded, and he followed a
little way behind. It gave him a sense of keen distress to see her
threading her way through groups of rough men, who ignored or jostled
her, to the little window where she bought her ticket, and it angered
him to see how indifferently the man sold it to her, and pushed her her
change.

For a while he kept at a distance, observing her, however, as she took
her way, with an air of familiarity with her surroundings, to a place on
deck sheltered alike from observation and from the strong breeze which
was already beginning. Here the stewardess brought her a pillow, handing
it without speaking and waiting significantly. She took it in silence,
then got out her purse, a meagre-looking one, and put a little coin into
the woman's hand. As she did so she said, "Thank you," and the least
little foreign inflection--a lingering difficulty with the "th"--gave
Noel the last assurance that he needed. How unforgotten the voice was!
He believed he would almost have recognized it without any words.

The woman made no reply, but pocketed her fee and walked away. Then
Noel, who had seated himself quite near, with his face so turned that
he could see her without the appearance of gazing at her directly, set
himself to watch what followed. There was no one else near and it was
evident that she had not observed him. Indeed, she did not look about
her at all, but kept her eyes on the baby, whose apathetic little face
did not change. Shaking and smoothing the pillow she laid it on the seat
and tenderly placed her baby on it. The boat had started and the breeze,
delicious as it was to a strong person, might yet be too much for a sick
child, and this the mother plainly feared, for she hastily hung her
shawl over the railing beside the pillow. But this she soon discovered
kept off too much air. Noel could note her mental processes and
comprehend them as he saw her put up her hand to loosen her thick veil.

His pulses quickened. He was sure already, and yet a figure, a pose, a
knot of hair, even a voice and accent might deceive him. So he watched