s homage. She didn't know it would make no
difference to him.

She walked with him to Euston and saw him into the train. He had given
up his lodgings and was living with her father at The Pines. They were
busy on a plan for securing the co-operation of the workmen, and she
promised to run down and hear all about it. She would not change her
mind about Birmingham, but sent everyone her love.

She wished she had gone when it came to Christmas Day. This feeling of
loneliness was growing upon her. The Phillips had gone up north; and the
Greysons to some relations of theirs: swell country people in Hampshire.
Flossie was on a sea voyage with Sam and his mother, and even Madge had
been struck homesick. It happened to be a Sunday, too, of all days in
the week, and London in a drizzling rain was just about the limit. She
worked till late in the afternoon, but, sitting down to her solitary cup
of tea, she felt she wanted to howl. From the basement came faint sounds
of laughter. Her landlord and lady were entertaining guests. If they
had not been, she would have found some excuse for running down and
talking to them, if only for a few minutes.

Suddenly the vision of old Chelsea Church rose up before her with its
little motherly old pew-opener. She had so often been meaning to go and
see her again, but something had always interfered. She hunted through
her drawers and found a comparatively sober-coloured shawl, and tucked it
under her cloak. The service was just commencing when she reached the
church. Mary Stopperton showed her into a seat and evidently remembered
her. "I want to see you afterwards," she whispered; and Mary Stopperton
had smiled and nodded. The service, with its need for being continually
upon the move, bored her; she was not in the mood for it. And the
sermon, preached by a young curate who had not yet got over his Oxford
drawl, was uninteresting. She had half hoped that the wheezy old
clergyman, who had preached about Calvary on the evening she had first
visited the church, would be there again. She wondered what had become
of him, and if it were really a fact that she had known him when she was
a child, or only her fancy. It was strange how vividly her memory of him
seemed to pervade the little church. She had the feeling he was watching
her from the shadows. She waited for Mary in the vestibule, and gave her
the shawl, making her swear on the big key of the church door that she
would