on: the finger of fate that was to take him from her. They had
quarrelled, _sans doute_--who has not? there had been days when they
had not spoken. He had not been to her all that he might have been,
but . . . But--he was her man.

And now he was going; in half an hour her Pierre was going to leave
her. For him the bustle and glamour of the unknown; for her--the empty
chair, the lonely house, and her thoughts. Dear God! but war is a bad
thing for the women who stop behind. . . .

And on Draycott's brain a tableau is stamped indelibly, just a little
tableau he saw that night in the restaurant of the Gare de Lyon. They
came, the three of them, up the flight of steps from the seething
station below, into the peace and quiet of the room, and a roar of
sound swept in with them as the doors swung open. Threading their way
between the tables, they stopped just opposite to where he sat, and
instinctively he turned his head away. For her the half-hour was over,
her Pierre had gone; and it is not given to a man to look on a woman's
grief save with a catching in the throat and a pricking in the eyes.
It is so utterly terrible in its overwhelming agony at the moment, so
absolutely final; one feels so helpless.

The little boy clambered on to a chair and sat watching his mother
gravely; a grey-haired woman with anxious eyes held one of her hands
clasped tight. And the girl--she was just a girl, that's all--sat
dry-eyed and rigid, staring, staring, while every now and then she
seemed to whisper something through lips that hardly moved.

"Maman," a childish voice piped out. "Maman." He solemnly extended a
small and grubby hand towards her.

Slowly her head came round, her eyes took him in--almost
uncomprehendingly; she saw the childish face, the little dirty hand,
and suddenly there came to her the great gift of the Healer.

"Oh! mon bebe, mon pauv' p'tit bebe!" She picked him up off the chair
and, clutching him in her arms, put her face on his head and sobbed out
her heart.

"Come on." Draycott got up suddenly and turned to the man he was
dining with. "Let's go." They passed close to the table, and the fat
waiter, wiping his eyes on a dinner napkin, and the grey-haired woman
leaning gently over her, were talking in low tones. They seemed
satisfied as they watched the sobbing girl; and they were people of
understanding. "Pauvre petite," muttered the waiter as they passed.
"Mon Dieu! quelle vache de guerre."