And on this mission all my conscious thought was set. No hermit in the desert was ever more entirely self-dedicated to the saving of his soul than I to the quiet preaching of this new crusade among men like Ralph Coningsby and Stephen Cantyre and Beady Lamont and Headlights and Daisy and Momma and Mouse, and any others with whom I should come in contact. In fulfilling this task I wanted no one to disturb or distract me; and here at the very outset was some one who might do both. _CHAPTER XX_ After having found my cabin and seen to my belongings I hobbled up on deck once more, to verify my vision of the Canadian nurse’s uniform. I discovered the uniform in two or three instances, but in none that corresponded to the figure too little to be tall and too tall to be considered little I had watched receding down the deck. As for the costume itself, it was not difficult to find myself beside one of the ladies who wore it—a beautiful, grave woman, of the type of Bouguereau’s Consolatrice, who, with hands resting on the deck rail, was looking down at the movement on the dock. “There seem to be a number of nurses going back,” I observed, after an introductory word or two. “There are three in our party—myself and the two over there.” The two over there were two I had already seen, neither of them being my pilot of a half-hour previously. “I thought I saw another,” I threw off, casually. “I believe there is one—an American girl from Lady Rideover’s hospital at Taplow.” As I had just come from Lady Rideover’s hospital at Taplow, and Lady Rideover herself was my sister, I suggested, without mentioning the relationship, that in this speculation there was some mistake. “She may not have come directly from there,” the Consolatrice admitted; “but I know she was with Lady Rideover six months ago.” “But six months ago I was with Lady Rideover myself.” “Well, she was there then.” “But I should have seen her if she had been.” She turned slowly round on me, with deep, kind eyes. “Would you? You could see all the time?” I had forgotten that. There had been two months when I hadn’t seen at all. Any one might have come and gone during that time. Remarking on the inconvenience of having no list of passengers, I asked my companion if she knew the young lady’s name. “No; but I can inquire of my friends. They may know.” Having crossed to speak to the nurses on the other side of the deck, she came back without the information. “But Miss Prynne,” she added, “that’s the short one, says that the young lady came over about two years ago with Lady Rideover’s sister, Miss Melbury, of Montreal.”