They watched her, on the afternoon of the 23rd of December, depart in a cab for Seddon Court. She was grave and pale and beautifully neat. "I do admire Lizzie, you know," said Daisy, returning with her mother into the house. "I can't get that kind of tidiness. Her things go on for years, looking as good as new." "Men like a bit of disorder," said Mrs. Rand. "It seems more agitated. All the same I'd like to know what is worrying Lizzie." It was a wet and gusty day and the wind blew the rain with hard impatient spurts against the windows of the cab. Few people were about: Hyde Park Corner was grey and deserted, umbrellas like black mushrooms started here and there from the shining ground. Victoria Station also had, on this afternoon, nothing beautiful to offer. She found her way to her train, chose an empty carriage, sat in her corner with her hands upon her lap, waited for the train to move. People, grey people with white faces, hurried past her carriage. She wondered whether they too had something in their hearts that made every thought, every movement a danger. Because the train would not move and because for the first time in all these months she found herself without any occupation, she could not hold thought at bay. She resisted, she tried to sweep her brain empty, she surrendered. She, Lizzie Rand, always so fond of her self-discipline and restraint, found control now slipping from her. Before she had met Breton her duties, the skilful manipulation and arrangement of detail, her work and her place as a worker, these had supplied her needs. Now all those things were dust and ashes; high and lofty above them shone that bright fire whose warmth and colour she had, for an instant, felt and seen. What was life going to be, through all the years to come, if she were never to recapture her tranquillity? The train moved off and she sat there, her eyes bright and shining, her little body stiff and resolute. Somewhere, a long way away, like a rounded coloured cloud, hovered emotion--emotion that would break her heart, would tear her to pieces and then perhaps build up for her a new life. But her eyes now were dry and her heart was cold. The train went whir-whack--whack-whir and the telegraph wires flew up, hung, hesitated, were coming down, flew higher, then with a rush were buried below the window, and with the noise and movement there danced before her eyes the questions, "Does she love him?" "Does she love him? Has she told him that she loves him? What will her husband do? Does she love her husband?" And then, beyond that, "Why did she come and take from me all that I had, she who had already so much?" And then, most bitter of all, "Ah, but you never had him. She took nothing from you. He never thought of you except as someone to whom he could talk----"