ents to overflowing, whether it be
chilly spring or blazing summer, for Brighton is ever popular with the
jaded Londoner who is enabled to "run down" without fatigue, and get a
cheap health-giving sea-breeze for a few hours after the busy turmoil
of the Metropolis.

On this Sunday night it was no exception. The first-class compartment
was crowded, mostly be it said, by third-class passengers who had
"tipped" the guard, and when we had started I noticed in the far
corner opposite me a pale-faced young girl of about twenty or so,
plainly dressed in shabby black. She was evidently a third-class
passenger, and the guard, taking compassion upon her fragile form in
the mad rush for seats, had put her into our carriage. She was not
good-looking, indeed rather plain; her countenance wearing a sad,
pre-occupied expression as she leaned her chin upon her hand and gazed
out upon the lights of the town we were leaving.

I noticed that her chest rose and fell in a long-drawn sigh, and that
she wore black cotton gloves, one finger of which was worn through.
Yes, she was the picture of poor respectability.

The other passengers, two of whom were probably City clerks with their
loves, regarded her with some surprise that she should be a
first-class passenger, and there seemed an inclination on the part of
the loudly-dressed females to regard her with contempt.

Presently, when we had left the sea and were speeding through the open
country, she turned her sad face from the window and examined her
fellow passengers one after the other until, of a sudden, her eyes met
mine. In an instant she dropped them modestly and busied herself in
the pages of the sixpenny reprint of a popular novel which she carried
with her.

In that moment, however, I somehow entertained a belief that we had
met before. Under what circumstances, or where, I could not recollect.
The wistfulness of that white face, the slight hollowness of the
cheeks, the unnaturally dark eyes, all seemed familiar to me; yet
although for half an hour I strove to bring back to my mind where I
had seen her, it was to no purpose. In all probability I had attended
her at Guy's. A doctor in a big London hospital sees so many faces
that to recollect all is utterly impossible. Many a time I have been
accosted and thanked by people whom I have had no recollection of ever
having seen in my life. Men do not realise that they look very
different when lying in bed with a fortnight's growth