ok at them lest their presence should make her realise
more keenly her own loneliness; but someone came up beside her as she
struggled through the crowd, and forcibly lifted the bag from her hand.
She turned in alarm and saw a man's tall figure, lifted her eyes, and
felt her troubles and anxieties drop from her like a cloak.

It was Jack O'Shaughnessy himself!

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

A COMFORTER.

Think of it! Think of it! The grey, inhospitable skies, the rain-swept
stage, the feeling of hopeless loneliness, as one traveller after
another was greeted with loving exclamations, and borne away by friendly
watchers; and then suddenly to feel your hand grasped, and laid tenderly
on a protecting arm, and to see, looking into your own, the face of all
others which you would have wished for, had the choice been given! To
feel no longer a helpless unit, belonging to no one, and having no
corner of the earth to call your own, but to know that someone had
watched for your arrival, and to read how you had been missed, in the
flash of eloquent eyes.

"Oh, Jack!" cried Sylvia involuntarily; "oh, Jack!" and clung to his arm
with a sob of pure joy and thanksgiving. "Oh, I'm so glad! I was so
lonely. How did you--whatever made you come?"

"A great many reasons, but principally because I couldn't stay away!"
replied Jack, not smiling as was his wont, but looking down upon her
with an intent scrutiny, which aroused Sylvia's curiosity. She did not
realise how changed she was by the experience of the last few weeks, or
what a pathetic little face it was which looked up at him between the
dead black of hat and cape.

The brown eyes looked bigger than ever, the delicate aquiline of the
features showed all the more distinctly for their sharpened pallor, and
Jack looked down at her through the mist, and thanked God for the health
and strength which made him a fitting protector for her weakness. The
sound of that involuntary "Oh, Jack!" rang sweetly in his ears, and gave
a greater confidence to his manner, as he steered her through the crowd.

"Miss Munns told us when you were expected, and we talked of meeting you
at the station, but I decided that I had better stay away; then I wrote
a letter to welcome you, and tore it up; then for no purpose at all I
began looking at Bradshaw, and it seemed there was a train which I could
catch. And it rained! It's dismal arriving in the rain. Next thing I
knew I was in the station, a