And on Draycott's brain a tableau is stamped indelibly, just a little tableau he saw that night in the restaurant of the Gare de Lyon. They came, the three of them, up the flight of steps from the seething station below, into the peace and quiet of the room, and a roar of sound swept in with them as the doors swung open. Threading their way between the tables, they stopped just opposite to where he sat, and instinctively he turned his head away. For her the half-hour was over, her Pierre had gone; and it is not given to a man to look on a woman's grief save with a catching in the throat and a pricking in the eyes. It is so utterly terrible in its overwhelming agony at the moment, so absolutely final; one feels so helpless. The little boy clambered on to a chair and sat watching his mother gravely; a grey-haired woman with anxious eyes held one of her hands clasped tight. And the girl--she was just a girl, that's all--sat dry-eyed and rigid, staring, staring, while every now and then she seemed to whisper something through lips that hardly moved. "Maman," a childish voice piped out. "Maman." He solemnly extended a small and grubby hand towards her. Slowly her head came round, her eyes took him in--almost uncomprehendingly; she saw the childish face, the little dirty hand, and suddenly there came to her the great gift of the Healer. "Oh! mon bebe, mon pauv' p'tit bebe!" She picked him up off the chair and, clutching him in her arms, put her face on his head and sobbed out her heart. "Come on." Draycott got up suddenly and turned to the man he was dining with. "Let's go." They passed close to the table, and the fat waiter, wiping his eyes on a dinner napkin, and the grey-haired woman leaning gently over her, were talking in low tones. They seemed satisfied as they watched the sobbing girl; and they were people of understanding. "Pauvre petite," muttered the waiter as they passed. "Mon Dieu! quelle vache de guerre." "My God!" said Draycott, as they went down the steps. "I didn't realise before what war meant to a woman. And we shall never realise what it means to our own women. We only see them before we go. Never after." IV