Sara Lee stood beside Mr. Travers, for companionship only.  He had preserved a typically British aloofness during the voyage, and he had never spoken to her.  But there was something forlorn in Sara Lee that night as she clutched her hat with both hands and stared out at the shore lights.  And if he had been silent during the voyage he had not been deaf.  So he knew why almost every woman on the ship was making the voyage; but he knew nothing about Sara Lee.

“Bad night,” said Mr. Travers.

“I was wondering what they are trying to do with that little boat.”

Mr. Travers concealed the surprise of a man who was making his seventy-second voyage.

“That’s the pilot boat,” he explained.  “We are picking up a pilot.”

“But,” marveled Sara Lee rather breathlessly, “have we come all the way without any pilot?”

He explained that to her, and showed her a few moments later how the pilot came with incredible rapidity up the swaying rope ladder and over the side.

To be honest, he had been watching for the pilot boat, not to see what to Sara Lee was the thrilling progress of the pilot up the ladder, but to get the newspapers he would bring on with him.  It is perhaps explanatory of the way things went for Sara Lee from that time on that he quite forgot his newspapers.

The chairs were gone from the decks, preparatory to the morning landing, so they walked about and Sara Lee at last told him her story—­the ladies of the Methodist Church, and the one hundred dollars a month she was to have, outside of her traveling expenses, to found and keep going a soup kitchen behind the lines.

“A hundred dollars a month,” he said.  “That’s twenty pounds.  Humph!  Good God!”

But this last was under his breath.

Then she told him of Mabel Andrews’ letter, and at last read it to him.  He listened attentively.  “Of course,” she said when she had put the letter back into her bag, “I can’t feed a lot, even with soup.  But if I only help a few, it’s worth doing, isn’t it?”

“Very much worth doing,” he said gravely.  “I suppose you are not, by any chance, going to write a weekly article for one of your newspapers about what you are doing?”

“I hadn’t thought of it.  Do you think I should?”

Quite unexpectedly Mr. Travers patted her shoulder.

“My dear child,” he said, “now and then I find somebody who helps to revive my faith in human nature.  Thank you.”

Sara Lee did not understand.  The touch on the shoulder had made her think suddenly of Uncle James, and her chin quivered.

“I’m just a little frightened,” she said in a small voice.

“Twenty pounds!” repeated Mr. Travers to himself.  “Twenty pounds!” And aloud:  “Of course you speak French?”

“Very little.  I’ve had six lessons, and I can count—­some.”