Whenever—as happened not once, but often—an engine was sighted rounding the curve to the northward, there was instant bustle and expectation on the part of the waiting multitude. Makeshift luggage was collected and clutched at, mothers screamed to their straying young families and herded them together in anxious preparation for the formidable struggle ahead; but not once but often the alarm was a false one, the preparations in vain, as the train sped by without halt. The first to run past was a Red Cross train with bandaged men showing at the windows; as it slid between the platforms the crowd buzzed its disappointment and then—with the exception of some few determined souls who vented their annoyance in raps on the station-master’s door—settled down in dejection to continue its weary waiting. Another half-hour of sweltering impatience and again the mothers screamed and rounded up their families, with the same result as before; this time the relentless and undelaying train was packed, not with wounded soldiers, but with refugees from higher up the line—like unto themselves but more fortunate. It was packed to the doors and beyond the doors—since men were hanging on the footboards. For many reasons William and his guardian avoided the platform where the crowd was thickest and sat under the hedge by the line. During the first hour or two of their weary sojourn she judged him past rousing and left him to his own thoughts; and he sat by her side with his hands hugging his knees and seemingly unconscious of her presence. Later, about midday, when she fed him from the store of provisions she had brought for the journey, she essayed to rouse him by telling him how she had come there and who she was. Her name was Haynes, Edith Haynes; she had been some weeks in the neighbourhood, staying in the country house of some distant French cousins. They had been warned, soon after hostilities broke out, that proximity to the frontier might be dangerous, but had been unable to leave owing to the illness of one of the family. Yesterday the invalid, partially recovered, had been got off with her mother in a car procured with difficulty; as it had other occupants and could not carry the whole party, she—Miss Haynes—had volunteered to remain behind and follow to Paris by rail. William listened, occasionally nodding to show that he listened; in a way he was grateful for her presence, but nothing seemed to matter ... and, seeing that it was as yet too early to help him to other thoughts, she left him again to his silence.