The tears seemed to stop from sheer surprise; little grey eyes gazed round, patient little eyes from above an almost bridgeless nose. “I'ad a baby. It's dead.... its father's dead in France.... I was goin' in the water, but I didn't like the look of it, and now I never will.” That “Now I never will,” moved Noel terribly. She slid her arm along the back of the bench and clasped the skinniest of shoulders. “Don't cry!” “It was my first. I'm thirty-eight. I'll never 'ave another. Oh! Why didn't I go in the water?” The face puckered again, and the squeezed-out tears ran down. 'Of course she must cry,' thought Noel; 'cry and cry till it feels better.' And she stroked the shoulder of the little woman, whose emotion was disengaging the scent of old clothes. “The father of my baby was killed in France, too,” she said at last. The little sad grey eyes looked curiously round. “Was 'e? 'Ave you got your baby still?” “Yes, oh, yes!” “I'm glad of that. It 'urts so bad, it does. I'd rather lose me 'usband than me baby, any day.” The sun was shining now on a cheek of that terribly patient face; its brightness seemed cruel perching there. “Can I do anything to help you?” Noel murmured. “No, thank you, miss. I'm goin' 'ome now. I don't live far. Thank you kindly.” And raising her eyes for one more of those half-bewildered looks, she moved away along the Embankment wall. When she was out of sight, Noel walked back to the station. The train was in, and she took her seat. She had three fellow passengers, all in khaki; very silent and moody, as men are when they have to get up early. One was tall, dark, and perhaps thirty-five; the second small, and about fifty, with cropped, scanty grey hair; the third was of medium height and quite sixty-five, with a long row of little coloured patches on his tunic, and a bald, narrow, well-shaped head, grey hair brushed back at the sides, and the thin, collected features and drooping moustache of the old school. It was at him that Noel looked. When he glanced out of the window, or otherwise retired within himself, she liked his face; but when he turned to the ticket-collector or spoke to the others, she did not like it half so much. It was as if the old fellow had two selves, one of which he used when alone, the other in which he dressed every morning to meet the world. They had begun to talk about some Tribunal on which they had to sit. Noel did not listen, but a word or two carried to her now and then. “How many to-day?” she heard the old fellow ask, and the little cropped man answering: “Hundred and fourteen.”