It seemed that the ill-fated boy's image was rarely absent from her. Not the burning figure, flying about and screaming (as there could be no reasonable doubt he did fly about and scream), but the happy child, marching to and fro in the room, all pleased with his pretty toy, the lighted church. After George's death, when grief was telling upon her system and calling forth all of nervousness inherent in it, she hardly dared to be alone in the dark, lest the sight should appear to her; she dreaded the waking up at night, and Prance's bed was removed into her room. A little time to renew her strength of body, and these nervous fancies would subside; but meanwhile there was one great comprehensive dread upon her--the anniversary of the fatal day, the 10th of November,--St. Martin's Eve. It was close at hand,--the intervening hours were slipping past with giant strides; and she asked herself how she should support its remembrances. "Oh, that he had lived! that he were at my side now! that I could give to him the love I did not give him in life!" she murmured, alluding to poor Benja. From Ypres she hastened away to Lille, and there spent a day or two; but she thought she would go back to England. That renowned saint's vigil was dawning now, for this was the ninth. Should she spend the tenth in travelling?--or remain where she was, at rest, until the eleventh? _At rest!_--while this state of mind was upon her? It were mockery to call it so. Rather let her whirl over the earth night and day, as the fierce raven whirled over the waters on being set loose from the Ark; but not again let her hope for rest! The tenth day came in, and she was to all appearance calm. But a fit of restlessness came upon her in the course of the morning, and she gave orders to depart at once for a certain town on the coast--a town belonging to France now, but whose population still cling to their Flemish tongue. A steamer was about to leave the port of this town for London that night, and the sudden idea had taken her that she would go by it--to the intense indignation of Prance, who had never in all her life heard of civilized beings crossing the Channel except by the short passage. They quitted Lille, and arrived at the town about four in the afternoon, putting up at the large hotel. Mrs. Brayford was still in her train: her services had been useful during the recent excited state of Mrs. St. John; but she was not to attend her to England, and here they would part company. "Will Madame dine in her salon, or at the table-d'hôte?" inquired the head-waiter of the man-servant, in sufficiently plain English. "At the table-d'hôte, no doubt," was the man's reply, speaking in accordance with his own opinion. "Madame has lost her two children, and is in low spirits, not caring to be much alone. Today is the anniversary of the eldest's death." "Tiens!" returned the waiter. "Today is the eve of St. Martin. All the children in the town will be gay tonight."