igs not far off. Will you come and see her? I don't suppose
you've been on board a Noah's ark before."

Barbara did not hesitate. She doubted if Mrs. Cartwright would approve
and knew Grace would not, but this was not important. Grace disapproved
all she did and the stolen excursion would break the monotony. Then
Lister's twinkling smile appealed, and somehow her reserve vanished when
she was out of doors with him.

"I'd like to go," she said.

"Then, come along," he urged, and they started for the elevated railway
at the bottom of the street.

While the electric cars rolled along the docks Barbara's moodiness went.
She could not see much in the fog. Wet warehouse roofs, masts and
funnels, and half-seen hulls floating on dull water, loomed up and
vanished. Inside the car, lights glimmered on polished wood; the
rattling and shaking were somehow cheerful. Barbara felt braced and
alert. Lister talked and she laughed. She could not hear all he said,
because of the noise, and thought he did not hear her, but she did not
mind. She liked his cheerfulness and frank satisfaction. The gloom
outside and the blurred lights in the fog gave the excursion a touch of
romantic adventure.

They got down at a station by a muddy dock-road. Ponderous lorries with
giant horses rolled out of the gloom between stacks of goods; wet cattle
were entangled in the press of traffic, and Barbara was relieved when
Lister pushed back a sliding door. Then she stopped for a moment, half
daunted by the noise and bustle, and looked about.

Big lights hung from the room of the long shed, but did not pierce the
gloom that lurked between the piles of cargo. A flock of sheep, moving
in a dense woolly mass, came down a gangway; squealing pigs occupied a
bay across the piles of goods. The front of the shed was open and in
places one saw a faint reflection that looked like water. Opposite
Barbara, the gap between the low roof and dock-sill was filled by a
deckhouse and a steamer's funnel. Steam blew across the opening farther
on, and in the vapor bales and boxes shot up and rattling chains plunged
down. Through the roar of the winches she heard coarse shouts and the
bellowing of cattle.

Lister took her to a slanting plank that spanned a dark gulf and she saw
dim water and then the hollow of a steamer's hold. Men who looked like
ghosts moved in the gloom and indistinct cattle came up a railed plank.
Barbara could not see where they came from; they plunged