“What is it?” she asked.  “Have you lost your child?”

The woman looked at her vaguely, bewildered by the surrounding horror.

“Iss.  Us dunnaw wur er’s tu; er’s dade, I reckon.  Aw, my li’l, li’l chiel!” And she rocked to and fro, clutching her shawl more closely round her.

Diana put a few brief questions and elicited that the woman and her child had both been taken unhurt out of a third-class carriage—­of the ten souls who had occupied the compartment the only ones to escape injury.

“I’ll go and look for him,” she told her.  “I expect he has only strayed away and lost sight of you amongst all these people.  Four years old and wearing a little red coat, did you say?  I’ll find him for you; you sit down here.”  And she pushed the poor distraught creature down on a pile of shattered woodwork.  “Don’t be frightened,” she added reassuringly.  “I feel certain he’s quite safe.”

She disappeared into the throng, and after searching for a while came face to face with her fellow traveller, carrying a chubby, red-coated little boy in his arms.  He stopped abruptly.

“What in the world are you doing?” he demanded angrily.  “You’ve no business here.  Go back—­you’ll only see some ghastly sights if you come, and you can’t help.  Why didn’t you stay where I told you to?”

But Diana paid no heed.

“I want that child,” she said eagerly, holding out her arms.  “The mother’s nearly out of her mind—­she thinks he’s killed, and I told her I’d go and look for him.”

“Is this the child? . . .  All right, then, I’ll carry him along for you.  Where did you leave his mother?”

Diana led the way to where the woman was sitting, still rocking herself to and fro in dumb misery.  At the sight of the child she leapt up and clutched him in her arms, half crazy with joy and gratitude, and a few sympathetic tears stole down Diana’s cheeks as she and her fellow-helper moved away, leaving the mother and child together.

The man beside her drew her arm brusquely within his.

“You’re not going near that—­that hell again.  Do you hear?” he said harshly.

His face looked white and drawn; it was smeared with dirt, and his clothes were torn and dishevelled.  Here and there his coat was stained with dark, wet patches.  Diana shuddered a little, guessing what those patches were.

“You’ve been helping!” she burst out passionately.  “Did you want me to sit still and do nothing while—­while that is going on just below?” And she pointed to where the injured were being borne along on roughly improvised stretchers.  A sob climbed to her throat and her voice shook as she continued:  “I was safe, you see, thanks to you.  And—­and I felt I must go and help a little, if I could.”