Miss Silver permitted an expression of distaste to change the set of her lips. Vulgar – very vulgar indeed. She really did not know what the press was coming to. She looked across at Lisle and saw her leaning back. Her eyes were closed, but she was not asleep. The hand in her lap was clenched upon itself, the knuckles showed bone-white. No, not asleep, only withdrawn into a desperate unhappiness.

A little later, as the train slowed, the eyes opened and met Miss Silver’s. There was a long moment before the eyelids dropped again.

Miss Silver unhasped her bag and extracted from it a neat professional card inscribed:

Miss Maud Silver

15 Montague Mansions,

West Leaham Street, S. W.

Private Investigations Undertaken.

She closed her bag again with a decisive snap as the train slid into the gloom of the terminus. A porter flung the door open. The woman with the three hearty children gathered her brood and got out. Mrs. Dale Jerningham rose to her slim height and turned to follow them.

She had reached the platform and had walked a few steps, when she became aware of a hand on her arm. The little dumpy woman to whom she had talked in the train was walking beside her. She had talked to her, but she could not remember just what she had said. She didn’t want to talk to her now. She looked down vaguely and saw that she was being offered a card. She took it and put it in her bag. The voice which reminded her of all the governesses she had ever had said kindly and distinctly,

“If you need help at any time, that is my name and address.”