There was a knock at my door. I do not know which of us answered it, but my landlady came into the room, followed by three men in tall silk hats.

"Excuse us, my dear," she said, in an insincere voice. "These gentlemen are making an examination of the house, and they wish to see your room.

May they?"

I do not think I made any reply. I was holding my breath and watching intently. The men made a pretence of glancing round, but I could see they were looking at Mildred. Their looks seemed to say as plainly as words could speak:

"Is it she?"

Mildred hesitated for a moment, there was a dreadful silence and then--may the holy Virgin bless her!--she shook her head.

I could bear no more. I turned back to the window. The men, who had looked at each other with expressions of surprise, tried to talk together in ordinary tones as if on common place subjects.

"So there's nothing to do here, apparently."

"Apparently not."

"Let's go, then. Good day, Sister. Sorry to have troubled you."

I heard the door close behind them. I heard their low voices as they passed along the corridor. I heard their slow footsteps as they went down the stairs. And then, feeling as if my heart would burst, I turned to throw myself at Sister Mildred's feet.

But Sister Mildred was on her knees, with her face buried in my bed, praying fervently.

EIGHTY-SECOND CHAPTER

I did not know then, and it seems unnecessary to say now, why my father gave up the search for me in London. He did so, and from the day the milliner's clue failed him I moved about freely.

Then from the sense of being watched I passed into that of being lost.

Sister Mildred was my only friend in London, but she was practically cut off from me. The Little Sisters had fixed her up (in the interests of her work among the lost ones) in a tiny flat at the top of a lofty building near Piccadilly, where her lighted window always reminded me of a lighthouse on the edge of a dangerous reef. But in giving me her address she warned me not to come to her except in case of urgent need partly because further intercourse might discredit her denial, and partly because it would not be good for me to be called "one of Sister Veronica's girls"--that being Mildred's name as a nun.

Oh the awful loneliness of London!

Others just as friendless have wandered in the streets of the big city.

I knew I was not the first, and I am sure I have not been the last to find London the most solitary place in the world. But I really and truly think there was one day of the week when, from causes peculiar to my situation, my loneliness must have been deeper than that of the most friendless refugee.

Nearly every boarder in our boarding-house used to receive once a week or once a month a letter containing a remittance from some unknown source, with which he paid his landlady and discharged his other obligations.

I had no such letter to receive, so to keep up the character I had not made but allowed myself to maintain (of being a commander's wife) I used to go out once a week under pretence of calling at a shipping office to draw part of my husband's pay.

In my childish ignorance of the habits of business people I selected Saturday afternoon for this purpose; and in my fear of encountering my husband, or my husband's friends in the West End streets, I chose the less conspicuous thoroughfares at the other side of the river.

Oh, the wearisome walks I had on Saturday afternoons, wet or dry, down the Seven Dials, across Trafalgar Square, along Whitehall, round the eastern end of the Houses of Parliament, and past Westminster Pier (dear to me from one poignant memory), and so on and on into the monotonous and inconspicuous streets beyond.

Towards nightfall I would return, generally by the footway across Hungerford Bridge, which is thereby associated with the most painful moments of my life, for nowhere else did I feel quite so helpless and so lonely.

The trains out of Charing Cross shrieking past me, the dark river flowing beneath, the steamers whistling under the bridge, the automobiles tooting along the Embankment, the clanging of the electric cars, the arc lamps burning over the hotels and the open flares blazing over the theatres--all the never-resting life of London--and myself in the midst of the tumultuous solitude, a friendless and homeless girl.

But God in His mercy saved me from all that--saved me too, in ways in which it was only possible to save a woman.

The first way was through my vanity.

Glancing at myself in my mottled mirror one morning I was shocked to see that what with my loneliness and my weary walks I was losing my looks, for my cheeks were hollow, my nose was pinched, my eyes were heavy with dark rings underneath them, and I was plainer than Martin had ever seen me.

This frightened me.

It would be ridiculous to tell all the foolish things I did after that to improve and preserve my appearance for Martin's sake, because every girl whose sweetheart is away knows quite well, and it is not important that anybody else should.

There was a florist's shop in Southampton Row, and I went there every morning for a little flower which I wore in the breast of my bodice, making believe to myself that Martin had given it to me.

There was a jeweller's shop there too, and I sold my wedding ring (having long felt as if it burnt my finger) and bought another wedding ring with an inscription on the inside "_From Martin to Mary_."

As a result of all this caressing of myself I saw after a while, to my great joy, that my good looks were coming back; and it would be silly to say what a thrill of delight I had when, going into the drawing-room of our boarding-house one day, the old actress called me "Beauty" instead of the name I had hitherto been known by.

The second way in which God saved me from my loneliness was through my condition.

I did not yet know what angel was whispering to me out of the physical phase I was passing through, when suddenly I became possessed by a passion for children.

It was just as if a whole new world of humanity sprang into life for me by magic. When I went out for my walks in the streets I ceased to be conscious of the faces of men and women, and it seemed as if London were peopled by children only.

I saw no more of the crowds going their different ways like ants on an ant-hill, but I could not let a perambulator pass without peering under the lace of the hood at the little cherub face whose angel eyes looked up at me.

There was an asylum for children suffering from incurable diseases in the smaller square beside our boarding-house, and every morning after breakfast, no matter how cold the day might be, I would open my window to hear the cheerful voices of the suffering darlings singing their hymn:

"_There's a Friend for little children, Above the bright blue sky_."

Thus six weeks passed, Christmas approached, and the sad old city began to look glad and young and gay.

Since a certain night at Castle Raa I had had a vague feeling that I had thrown myself out of the pale of the Church, therefore I had never gone to service since I came to London, and had almost forgotten that confession and the mass used to be sweet to me.

But going home one evening in the deepening London fog (for the weather had begun to be frosty) I saw, through the open doors of a Catholic church, a great many lights in a side chapel, and found they were from a little illuminated model of the Nativity with the Virgin and Child in the stable among the straw. A group of untidy children were looking at it with bright beady eyes and chattering under their breath, while a black-robed janitor was rattling his keys to make them behave.

This brought back the memory of Rome and of Sister Angela. But it also made me think of Martin, and remember his speech at the public dinner, about saying the prayers for the day with his comrades, that they might feel that they were not cut off from the company of Christian men.

So telling myself he must be back by this time on that lonely plateau that guards the Pole, I resolved (without thinking of the difference of time) to go to mass on Christmas morning, in order to be doing the same thing as Martin at the same moment.

With this in my mind I returned to our boarding-house and found Christmas there too, for on looking into the drawing-room on my way upstairs I saw the old actress, standing on a chair, hanging holly which the old colonel with old-fashioned courtesy was handing up to her.

They were cackling away like two old hens when they caught sight of me, whereupon the old actress cried:

"Ah, here's Beauty!"

Then she asked me if I would like a ticket for a dress rehearsal on Christmas Eve of a Christmas pantomime.

"The audience will be chiefly children out of the lanes and alleys round about, but perhaps you won't mind that," she said.