If only she could do something. She was sick of thinking. Palace Yard, save for a statuesque policeman, was empty.!

“An odd reason for enlisting,” thought Joan. “I fancy that’s the idea,” said Joan. “What will you do if you fail? Go back to China?”

Joan had gone out in September, and for a while the weather was pleasant. The men, wrapped up in their great-coats, would sleep for preference under the great sycamore trees. Through open doorways she would catch glimpses of picturesque groups of eager card-players, crowded round a flickering candle. From the darkness there would steal the sound of flute or zither, of voices singing. Occasionally it would be some strident ditty of the Paris music-halls, but more often it was sad and plaintive. But early in October the rains commenced and the stream became a roaring torrent, and a clammy mist lay like a white river between the wooded hills. “You won’t mind my running away for a minute,” she said. “I shall only be in the next room.” “You won’t mind Robert not wearing evening dress,” she said. “He never will if he can help it. I shall just slip on a semi-toilette myself.”