"Oh, Mona," she said, "here is a poor woman with four little children, looking for a carriage that will hold them all. Poor soul! She does look hot and tired. I do wish she would look in our direction. Here she comes!" Doris threw open the door, and lifted the children and bundles in, one by one. "You did not mind, did you?" she said suddenly to Mona, as the train moved on. "Oh no!" Mona laughed, and shrugged her shoulders. "One must pay the penalty of travelling with a _schöne Seele_!" CHAPTER XXII. DR ALICE BATESON. Glaring lights in the murky darkness, hurrying porters pursuing the train, eager eyes on the platform strained in the direction of the windows, announced the arrival of the Flying Scotchman at King's Cross. "Are you sure your husband will be here to meet you?" said Doris to her _protégée_. "I will stay with the children till you find him. Mona, dear, I had better say good night. I will call to-morrow morning to see you and enquire for your friend." "Is there any one here to meet you?" "I saw my aunt's footman a minute ago. He will find me presently." A moment later a beautiful, white-haired old clergyman came up, removing his glove before shaking hands with Mona. "I scarcely know how to thank you," he said, in a low voice. "You are a friend in need." "And Lucy?" "Lucy's temperature, as I expected, has gone down with a run since she heard you were coming. The doctor says all will be well now." Mona drew a long breath of relief, and looked up in his face with a smile. He laid his hand on her shoulder. "Where is your luggage?" "This porter has my valise. That is all." They got into a hansom, while the tall footman conducted Doris to a neat brougham, and a moment later they rattled away. If Sir Douglas made Mona "a girl again," Mr Reynolds made her feel herself a child. With him her superficial crust of cynicism vanished like hoar-frost before the sun, and gave place to a gentle deference which had completely won the old man's heart. "The type of woman I admire," he had said with dignity to Lucy, "is the woman of clear intellect;" but it is probable that the woman of clear intellect would have appealed to him less, if she had not looked at him with pathetic revering eyes that seemed to say, "They call me clever and strong, but I am only a fatherless girl after all." "Will Lucy be settled for the night when we get home?" Mona asked, when she had exhausted her other questions. "No; she gets a hypodermic injection of morphia when the pain comes on, and that was to be postponed, if possible, till our arrival." In a few minutes the cab drew up at a dimly lighted door in Bloomsbury. The house was old-fashioned and substantial; but a certain air of squalor is inseparably associated with most London lodgings, and it was not altogether absent here. "Will you show this lady to her room?" said the clergyman courteously to the maid who opened the door.