Mrs. Colwood insisted on dinner at the Charing Cross Hotel. Diana submitted. Afterward they made their way, along the departure platform, to the Dover-Calais train. They took their seats. Muriel Colwood knew--felt it indeed, through every nerve--that the girl with her was still watching, still hoping, still straining each bodily perception in a listening expectancy. The train was very full, and the platform crowded with friends, luggage, and officials. Upon the tumult the great electric lamps threw their cold ugly light. The roar and whistling of the trains filled the vast station. Diana, meanwhile, sat motionless in her corner, looking out, one hand propping her face. But no one came. The signal was given for departure. The train glided out. Diana's head slipped back and her eyes closed. Muriel, stifling her tears, dared not approach her. * * * * * Northward and eastward from Dover Harbor, sweep beyond sweep, rose the white cliffs that are to the arriving and departing Englishman the symbols of his country. Diana, on deck, wrapped in veil and cloak, watched them disappear, in mists already touched by the moonrise. Six months before she had seen them for the first time, had fed her eyes upon the "dear, dear land," as cliffs and fields and houses flashed upon the sight, yearning toward it with the passion of a daughter and an exile. In those six months she had lived out the first chapter of her youth. She stood between two shores of life, like the vessel from which she gazed; vanishing lights and shapes behind her; darkness in front. "Where lies the land to which the ship must go? Far, far ahead is all the seamen know!" Part III "_Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no, How can it? O how can Love's eye be true That is so vexed with watching and with tears?_" CHAPTER XV London was in full season. But it was a cold May, and both the town and its inhabitants wore a gray and pinched aspect. Under the east wind an unsavory dust blew along Piccadilly; the ladies were still in furs; the trees were venturing out reluctantly, showing many a young leaf bitten by night frosts; the Park had but a scanty crowd; and the drapers, oppressed with summer goods, saw their muslins and gauzes in the windows give up their freshness for naught.