e before you've done."

A few minutes later she was standing in her own little room, listening to
the retreating rush of his motor-cycle down the road. There was a great
tumult in her mind.

"Am I falling in love with him? Am I--am I?"

But in the dark, when she had put out her light, the cry that shaped
itself in her mind was identical with that sudden misgiving of the
afternoon, when on Ellesborough's arrival she had first heard his voice
downstairs talking to Janet.

"_I wish he knew_!" But this time it was no mere passing qualm. It had
grown into something intense and haunting.

* * * * *

On this same September afternoon, a dark-eyed, shabby woman, with a
little girl, alighted at Millsborough Station. They were met by a man who
had been lounging about the station for some time and whose appearance
had attracted some attention. "See him at a distance, and you might take
him for a lord; but get him close, my word!--" said the station-master to
the booking-clerk, with a shrug, implying many things.

"Wouldn't give a bob for his whole blessed turn-out," said the
booking-clerk. "But right you are, when you sort of get the hang of him,
far enough away on the other platform, might be a dook!"

Meanwhile, the man had shouldered some of the bags and parcels brought by
the woman and the child, though hardly his fair share of them; and they
finally reached the exit from the station.

"If you're going into the town, the bus will be here in a few minutes,"
said a porter civilly to the woman. "It'll help you with all those
things."

The man gruffly answered for her that they preferred to walk, and they
started, the woman and the child dragging wearily beside him.

"Now, you've got to be content with what I've found for you," he said to
her roughly as they reached the first houses of the town. "There isn't
scarcely a lodging or a cottage to be had. Partly it's the holidays
still, and partly it's silly folk like you--scared of raids."

"I couldn't go through another winter like last, for Nina's sake," said
the woman plaintively.

"Why, you silly goose, there won't be any raids this winter. I've told
you so scores of times. We've got the upper hand now, and the Boche will
keep his planes at home. But as you won't listen to me, you've got to
have your way, I suppose. Well, I've got you rooms of a sort. They'll
have to do. I haven't got money enough for anything decent."

The woman made