geant. "Seems to be in trouble, sir."

"She's in perfectly frightful trouble," said Tom. "She's on her way to
Dublin--or she would be if this train would start--so as to catch the
night mail to Cork. She was to have been married in Cork to-morrow
morning and to have gone off to America by a steamer which leaves
Queenstown at 10.30 a.m. Now of course, the whole thing is off. She
won't get to Dublin or Cork, and so can't be married."

Susie, when she heard this pitiful story, sobbed convulsively.

"It's very sad," said Tom.

The sergeant, a nice, tender-hearted young man, looked at Susie's pretty
face and was greatly affected.

"Perhaps her young man will wait for her, sir," he said.

"He can't do that," said Tom. "The fact is that he's a demobilised
soldier, served all through the war and won the V.C. And the Sinn
Feiners have warned him that he'll be shot if he isn't out of the
country before midday to-morrow."

Susie continued to sob with great vigour and intensity. The sergeant was
deeply moved.

"It's cruel hard, sir," he said. "But my orders----"

"I'm not asking you to disobey orders," said Tom, "but in a case like
this, for the sake of that poor young girl and the gallant soldier who
wants to marry her--a comrade of your own, sergeant. You may have known
him out in France--I think you ought to stretch a point. Listen to me
now!"

He drew the sergeant away from the door of the carriage and whispered to
him.

"I'll do it, sir," said the sergeant. "My orders say nothing about that
point."

"You do what I suggest," said Tom, "and I'll fix things up with the
guard."

He found the guard and the engine driver awaiting events in the
station-master's office. They were quite willing to follow him to the
carriage in which Susie sat. They listened with deep emotion to the
story which Tom told them. It was exactly the same story which he told
the sergeant, except this time the bridegroom was a battalion commander
of the Irish Volunteers whose life was threatened by a malignant
Black-and-Tan. Susie sobbed as bitterly as before.

"It's a hard case, so it is," said the guard, "and if there was any way
of getting the young lady to Dublin----"

"There's only one way," said Tom, "and that's to take on this train."

"It's what we can't do," said the engine driver, "not if all the girls
in Ireland was wanting to get married. So long as the armed forces of
England----"

"But they're not armed," said Tom.

"Mich