not always as noisy as this. Come
along though, I'll see you home, if I may, my rooms are somewhere down
your street."

Joan lay awake long after she had got into bed, and when she did at last
drop off to sleep it was to dream strange, noise-haunted dreams, that
brought her little rest. It was morning, for a faint golden light was
invading the room, when she woke to find Fanny standing at the foot of
the bed. A different Fanny to any Joan had ever seen before, tired and
blowsy-looking, her hair pulled about her face, the colour rubbed in
patches from her cheeks and lips.

"My word, it has been a night;" she stood swaying and peering at Joan.
"It's life though, isn't it, honey?"

Then a wild fit of coughing seized her and Joan had to scramble out of
bed and give what help she could. There was no hope of sleep after that,
and when Fanny had been helped to bed Joan took up a chair to the window
and drew aside the curtain.

Her mind was a tumult of angry thoughts, but her heart ached miserably.
If this was what Fanny called life and laughter, she had no wish to live
it.

CHAPTER XIX

"I did not choose thee, dearest. It was Love
That made the choice, not I."

W. S. BLUNT.

All the way up the river from the Nore after they had picked up the
pilot the ship moved through a dense fog. A huge P. & O. liner, heavily
laden with passengers and mails, she had to proceed cautiously, like
some blind giant, emitting every two minutes a dolorous wail from her
foghorns.

"Clear the way, I am coming," was the substance of the weird sound, and
in answer to it shrill whistles sounded on all sides, from small fleets
of fishing-boats, coal hulks, and cargo boats bound from far-off lands.

"We are here too," they panted in answer; "don't run us down, please."

It was eerie work, even for the passengers, who remained in blissful
ignorance of the danger of their situation. By rights the ship should
have been in dock before breakfast; they had planned the night before
that an early dawn should see them awake and preparing to land; yet here
was eleven o'clock, and from what the more hardy of them could learn by
direct questioning of those in authority, they had not as yet passed
Canvey Island. Dick Grant, ship's doctor and therefore free of access to
inquirers, underwent a searching examination from all and sundry. The P.
& O. regulations are, that the officers shall not ta