"Why don't you knock twice? Bell's for the
ground floor. There, go up!"

I took off my cap, wiped my shoes, and, feeling
ashamed of my uniform for the first time in
my life, went slowly up to the second floor, and
then stopped; for I could hear a piano, and the
sweetest voice I ever heard was singing to it in
a low tone. I stopped, listening and drinking
in the sweet sounds with my heart beating
heavily, for it was a long way up; and I should
have stopped longer, had I not heard some one
coming up the stairs. Then I knocked, and a
voice cried, "Come in!"

I turned the handle two or three times, for it
was old and worn, and then, entering, stood
blushing like a great girl, and trembling before
the tall pale lady and some one lying upon a sofa
in front of a very miserable fire.

Such a bare, chilly room, and so cold and
pale both the inmates looked, as I stood
observing all I could in the first glance.

"Oh, mamma, the music!" cried the pale
girl, rising from her seat by the piano, and
running towards me; and then, as I clumsily
held it out, I saw that I was recognised, as she
thanked me for bringing it, and also for what
she called my kindness at the station.

"Ask him to take a glass of wine, Louise,"
said the lady on the sofa, when I saw the colour
flush in her daughter's cheek, as she said, hastily:

"I think, mamma, we have none in the house."

I clumsily protested that I would rather
not take any wine, and was backing towards
the door, when a sudden pain shot through
me, for I had detected a motion on the part of
the pale girl, and caught sight of a shilling
in her hand. I suppose I showed what I felt,
for she paused, and coloured deeply, and, as
I stood outside, she once more thanked me,
passed the shilling hastily into her left hand, and
held out the right to me.

I have some recollection of having taken it,
and pressed it to my quivering lips, and then I
was blundering along the streets in a sort of wild
dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but
apparently lost.

The days went on till Christmas Eve. I had
watched for her next coming to the station, and,
as usual, seen to the carriage in which she went.
I knew that I had nothing to hope for, being
only a railway servant, and she a lady; but, for
all that, it seemed my duty to watch over her,
though since the day when I returned the folio
her bows had been a little more distant, and she
had hurried into the carriage.

But it was Christmas Eve, and all through that
week I had not seen her. "Holidays," I said to
myself, and then tried to be as busy as possible, to
keep myself from thinking that it would be
perhaps a month or six weeks before I saw her again.
But there was no fear of my not being busy,
for most people know what sort of a Christmas
railway servants keep—all hurry, drive,
bustle, worry, and rush. Dull heavy weather it
was, yellow fog and driving snow. The trains
came in covered with white, which slowly
thawed and dripped off, so that the terminus
was wet, and cold, and miserably dirty. People
didn't seem to mind it, though; for the station
was thronged with comers and goers—friends
coming to meet those from the country, and as
many coming to see others off. " By yer leave,"
it was all day long, as the barrows full of parcels
and luggage were run here and there along the
platform. The place seemed alive with fish-
baskets, oyster-barrels, and poultry; while somehow
or another, from the poorest and shabbiest
third-class people up to the grandees of the
first class, every one looked happy and
comfortable.

So there was I at it, helping to get train after
train off—all late, of course; for, do what you
would, there was no finding room enough for the
people, and so it got to be past four, with the
gas all alight and the fog and snow thicker than
ever. A train was just starting, when there was
a bit of confusion at the door. Some one shouts
"Hold hard!" and then from where I was—
some distance up the platform—I saw a gentleman
hurry up to a first-class carriage, almost
dragging a lady with him—a lady in black.
Before any one could stop him, he had opened the
door, pushed her in, and then followed, just as
the train began gliding off.

This happened to be a carriage just put on,
and the compartment the gentleman entered was
locked; but he had one of the pocket railway
keys, for before the carriage reached where I
stood, with my heart somehow beating very
strangely, I saw his hand out of the window,
locking the door again. In the momentary
glance I caught, as the lamps of the station
flashed into the carriage, I could see that there
was no light inside, while two little gloved
hands pressed down the window the man tried
to draw up; and there, pale and horror-stricken,
eyes starting, and lips open, as if she were crying
"Help!" I saw the face of the young governess.

The time did not appear long enough to see so
much, but I saw all that, and my mind seemed
to keep up with my eyes and explain it all; and
I knew that there was some infernal piece of
villany on the way.

"What to do?" seemed rushing through my
mind, as in the agony I felt I turned all of a
tremble. Telegraph to the station in front to
stop the train, which was the express, with fifty
miles to run before pulling up?—send a special
engine and tender after them? How could
I do either on my own responsibility, and
only on suspicion? Should I go and report it?
I should have half an hour wasted in
questioning, and then perhaps be told that it was
time enough to act when there was proved
ground to work upon. And what had I to
advance? Nothing but that appealing look for aid
from her I loved.

"Her I loved!"  Yes, I knew it now; and
I knew, too, that, to be of service, I must act—
act at the risk of life or limb. I thought all this,