There was the occasion when she reached the port on the Caspian Sea one hour after the English boat had sailed.  She called it the “English” boat, but whether it could have belonged to an English company, or was merely the usual boat run in connection with the train service to England, I do not know.  A “Russian” vessel was due to leave in a couple of hours’ time, but for some reason Miss Macnaughtan was obliged to walk three-quarters of a mile to get permission to go by it.  We can never forget her piteous description of how she staggered and crawled to the office and back, so ill that only her iron strength of will could force her tired body to accomplish the distance.  She obtained the necessary sanction, and started forth once more upon her way.

She stayed for a week at the British Embassy in Petrograd, where her escort was obliged to leave her, so the rest of the journey was undertaken alone.

We know nothing of how she got to Helsingfors, but I believe it was at that place that she had to walk some considerable distance over a frozen lake to reach the ship.  She was hobbling along, leaning heavily on two sticks, and just as she stumbled and almost fell, a young Englishman came up and offered her his arm.

In an old diary, written years before in the Argentine, during a time when Miss Macnaughtan was faced with what seemed overwhelming difficulties, and when she had in her charge a very sick man, a kind stranger came to the rescue.  Her diary entry for that day is one of heartfelt gratitude, and ends with the words:  “God always sends someone.”

Certainly at Helsingfors some Protecting Power sent help in a big extremity, and this young fellow—­Mr. Seymour—­devoted himself to her for the rest of the journey in a marvellously unselfish manner.  He could not have been kinder to her if she had been his mother, and he actually altered all his plans on arriving in England, and brought her to the very door of her house in Norfolk Street.  Without his help I sometimes wonder whether my aunt would have succeeded in reaching home, and her own gratitude to him knew no bounds.  She used to say that in her experience if people were in a difficulty and wanted help they ought to go to a young man for it.  She said that young men were the kindest members of the human race.

[Page Heading:  ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND]

It was on the 8th of May that Miss Macnaughtan reached home, and her travels were over for good and all.  One is only thankful that the last weeks of her life were not spent in a foreign land but among her own people, surrounded by all the care and comfort that love could supply.  Two of her sisters were with her always, and her house was thronged with visitors, who had to wait their turn of a few minutes by her bedside, which, alas! were all that her strength allowed.

She was nursed night and day by her devoted maid, Mary King, as she did not wish to have a professional nurse; but no skill or care could save her.  The seeds of her illness had probably been sown some years before, during a shooting trip in Kashmir, and the hard work and strain of the first year of the war had weakened her powers of resistance.  But it was Russia that killed her.