Her evident despair appealed to Rainham’s somewhat inconveniently assertive sensibility.

He hesitated for a moment, glancing from the girl to Oswyn, and noting that the face, too, had a certain beauty which was not of the order affected by the women of Blackpool.

“Don’t go,” he said to Oswyn, who had withdrawn a few paces.  “I won’t keep you a moment!”

The baby in the woman’s arms set up a feeble wail, and it was borne in upon Rainham’s mind that the unhappy creature with the white face and pleading dark eyes had been waiting long.

“Didn’t my foreman tell you that the—­that the gentleman you asked for is not here?” he inquired gently.  “No one here has ever heard of Mr. Crichton.  I’m afraid you have made a mistake....  Hadn’t you better go home?  I’m sure it would be best for your child.”

“Home?” echoed the girl bitterly.  Then, changing her tone, “But I saw him here with my own eyes!” she pleaded.  “I saw him at the window there not a week ago quite plain, and then they told me he wasn’t here!  I’m sure he would see me if he only knew—­if he only knew!”

“He may have been here,” suggested Rainham doubtfully.  “There are a great many people here from day to day, and we don’t always know their names.  But I assure you he isn’t here now.”

The girl—­for in spite of her pale misery she did not look more—­drew her dark shawl more closely round herself and the child with a little, despairing shudder, glancing over her shoulder.  Rainham let his eyes rest on the frail figure pityingly, and a thought of the river behind her struck him with a sudden chill.

He put his hand, almost surreptitiously, into his pocket.

“Where do you live?” he asked.  “Near here?” The girl mentioned a street which he sometimes passed through when economy of time induced him to make an otherwise undesirable short-cut to the railway station.  “Well,” he said presently, “I can’t keep my friend here waiting, you know.  Come and see me to-morrow morning about midday, and I will see if I can help you.  Only you must promise me to go straight home now!  And”—­here he dropped a coin quickly into her hand—­“buy something for your child; you both look as if you wanted it.”

The girl looked at him dumbly for a moment.

“I will come, sir, and—­and thank you!” she said, with a quaver in her voice.  And then, in obedience to Rainham’s playfully threatening gesture, she turned away.

Rainham gazed after her until she had turned the corner.

“I’m sorry to have treated you to this—­scene,” he said apologetically, as he joined Oswyn, who was gazing over the narrow bridge.  “I felt bound to do something for the girl, after she had been wasting all that time outside my gates.  Did you notice what a pretty, refined face she had?  I wonder who the man can be—­Crichton, Cecil Crichton, wasn’t it?...  I never heard the name before.  It doesn’t sound like a sailor’s name.”