g to the French custom, but he had never written
to her. He was still in her debt for the hotel bill and the taxi fare.
He had not even kissed her at the station. She tried to fancy that she
heard his voice calling "Christine" with frantic supplication in her
ears, but she could not. She turned into another side street, and saw
a lighted doorway. Two soldiers were standing in the veiled radiance.
She could just read the lower half of the painted notice: "All service
men welcome. Beds. Meals. Writing and reading rooms. Always open." She
passed on. One of the soldiers, a non-commissioned officer of mature
years, solemnly winked at her, without moving an unnecessary muscle.
She looked modestly down.

Twenty yards further on she described near a lamp-post a tall soldier
whose somewhat bent body seemed to be clustered over with pots, pans,
tins, bags, valises, satchels and weapons, like the figure of some
military Father Christmas on his surreptitious rounds. She knew that
he must be a poor benighted fellow just back from the trenches. He was
staring up at the place where the street-sign ought to have been. He
glanced at her, and said, in a fatigued, gloomy, aristocratic voice:

"Pardon me, Madam. Is this Denman Street? I want to find the Denman
Hostel."

Christine looked into his face. A sacred dew suffused her from head
to foot. She trembled with an intimidated joy. She felt the mystic
influences of all the unseen powers. She knew herself with holy dread
to be the chosen of the very clement Virgin, and the channel of a
miraculous intervention. It was the most marvellous, sweetest
thing that had ever happened. It was humanly incredible, but it had
happened.

"Is it you?" she murmured in a soft, breaking voice.

The man stooped and examined her face.

She said, while he gazed at her: "Edgar!... See--the wrist watch,"
and held up her arm, from which the wide sleeve of her mantle slipped
away.

And the man said: "Is it you?"

She said: "Come with me. I will look after you."

The man answered glumly:

"I have no money--at least not enough for you. And I owe you a lot of
money already. You are an angel. I'm ashamed."

"What do you mean?" Christine protested. "Do you forget that you gave
me a five-pound note? It was more than enough to pay the hotel.... As
for the rest, let us not speak of it. Come with me."

"Did I?" muttered the man.

She could feel the very clement Virgin smiling approval of her fib;
it was e