The Heart of a Woman

"I have told you," she rejoined simply, "that father does not wish our engagement to be broken off. He sticks to your cause and will do so through thick and thin. He still believes that this Philip is an impostor, and thinks that Lord Radclyffe has taken leave of his senses."

She spoke quite quietly, matter-of-factly now, pulling, by her serene calm, Luke's soul back from the realms of turbulent sensations to the prosy facts of to-day. And he – in answer to her mute dictate and with a movement wholly instinctive and mechanical – drew himself upright, and passed his hand over his ruffled hair, and the jeopardized immaculateness of shirt front and cuffs.

"Philip de Mountford," he said simply, "is no impostor, Lou. He has been perfectly straightforward; and Mr. Dobson for one, who has seen all his papers, thinks that there is no doubt whatever that he is Uncle Arthur's son. His clerk – Mr. Downing – went out to Martinique, you know, and his first letters came a day or two ago. All inquiries give the same result, and Downing says that it is quite easy to trace the man's life, step by step, from his birth in St. Pierre, past the dark days of the earthquake and the lonely life at Marie-Galante. Mrs. de Mountford was a half-caste native, as we all suspected, but the marriage was unquestionably legal. Downing has spoken to people in Martinique and also in Marie-Galante, who knew her and her son, or at any rate, of them. I cannot tell you everything clearly, but there are a great many links in a long chain of evidence, and so far Mr. Dobson and his clerk have not come across a broken one. That the Mrs. de Mountford who died at Marie-Galante was Uncle Arthur's wife, and that Philip is his son, I am afraid no one can question. He has quite a number of letters in his possession which Uncle Arthur wrote after he had practically abandoned wife and child. I think it was the letters that convinced Uncle Rad."

"Lord Radclyffe," she remarked dryly, "has taken everything far too much for granted."

"He is convinced, Lou – and that's all about it."

"He is," she retorted more hotly than was her wont, "acting in a cruel and heartless manner. Even if this Philip is your uncle Arthur's son, even if he is heir to the peerage and the future head of the family, there was no reason for installing him in your home, Luke, and turning you and the others out of it."

"I suppose," rejoined Luke philosophically, "the house was never really our home. What Uncle Rad gave freely, he has taken away again from us. I don't suppose that we have the right to complain."

"But what will become of you all?"

"We must scrape along. Frank must have his promised allowance or he'll never get along in the service, and five hundred pounds a year is a big slice out of a thousand. Jim, too, spends a great deal. Uncle Rad never stinted him with money, for it was he who wanted Jim to be in the Blues. Now he may have to exchange into a less expensive regiment. I think Edie will marry soon – Reggie Duggan has been in love with her for the past two years – she may make up her mind now."

"But you, Luke?"

He did not know if he ought to tell her of his plans. The ostrich farm out in Africa – the partnership offered to him by a cousin of his mother's who was doing remarkably well, but who was getting old and wanted the companionship of one of his kind. It was a living anyway – but a giving up of everything that had constituted life in the past – and the giving up of his exquisite Lou. How could he ask her to share that life with him? – the primitive conditions, the total absence of luxuries, the rough, every-day existence?

And Lou, so perfectly dressed, so absolutely modern and dainty, waited on hand and foot —

But she insisted, seeing that he was hesitating and was trying to keep something from her.

"What about you, Luke?"

He had not time to reply, for from the hall below a shrill voice called to them both by name.

"Mr. de Mountford, Miss Harris, the young people want to dance. You'll join in, won't you?"

Already he was on his feet, every trace of emotion swept away from his face, together with every crease from his immaculate dress clothes, and every stray wisp of hair from his well-groomed head. Not a man, torn with passion, fighting the battle of life against overwhelming odds, casting away from him the hand which he would have given his last drop of blood to possess – only the man of the world, smiling while his very soul was being wrung – only the puppet dancing to the conventional world's tune.

"Dancing?" he said lightly: "Rather – Lady Ducies may I have this first waltz? No? – Oh! I say that's too bad. The first Lancers then? Good! Lou, may I have this dance?"

And the world went on just the same.

CHAPTER XI
AND THERE ARE SOCIAL DUTIES TO PERFORM

The first November fog.

The world had wagged on its matter-of-fact way for more than six months now, since that day in April when Philip de Mountford – under cover of lies told by Parker – had made his way into Lord Radclyffe's presence: more than five months since the favoured nephew had been so unceremoniously thrust out of his home.

Spring had yielded to summer, summer given way to autumn, and already winter was treading hard on autumn's heels. The autumn session had filled London with noise and bustle, with political dinner parties and monster receptions, with new plays at all the best theatres, and volumes of ephemeral literature.

And all that was – to-night – wrapped in a dense fog, the first of the season, quite a stranger, too, in London, for scientists had asserted positively that the era of the traditional "pea-souper" was over; the metropolis would know it no more.

Colonel Harris was in town with his sister, Lady Ryder, and Louisa, and swearing at London weather in true country fashion. He declared that fogs paralyzed his intellect that he became positively imbecile, not knowing how to fight his way in the folds of such a black pall. Taxicab drivers he mistrusted; in fact, he had all an old sportsman's hatred of mechanically propelled vehicles, whilst he flatly refused to bring valuable horses up to town, to catch their death of cold whilst waiting about in the fog.

So Luke had promised to pilot the party as far as the Danish Legation, where they were to dine to-night. This was the only condition under which Colonel Harris would consent to enter one of those confounded motors.

Colonel Harris had remained loyal to the core to Luke and to his fortunes. It is a way old sportsmen have, and he had never interfered by word or innuendo in Louisa's actions with regard to her engagement. His daughter was old enough, he said, to know her own mind. She liked Luke, and it would be shabby to leave him in the lurch, now that the last of the society rats were scurrying to leave the sinking ship. They were doing it, too, in a mighty hurry. The invitations which the penniless younger son received toward the end of the London season were considerably fewer than those which were showered on him at its beginning before the world had realized that Philip de Mountford had come to stay, and would one day be Earl of Radclyffe with a rent roll of eighty thousand pounds a year, and the sore need of a wife.

It had all begun with the bridge parties. Luke would no longer play, since he could no longer afford to lose a quarter's income at one sitting. Uncle Rad used to shrug indifferent shoulders at such losses, and place blank checks at the dear boy's disposal. Imagine then how welcome Luke was at bridge parties, and how very undesirable now.

Then he could no longer make return for hospitable entertainments. He had no home to which to ask smart friends. Lord Radclyffe though a monster of ill-humour, gave splendid dinner parties at which Luke was quasi host. Now it was all give and no take; and the givers retired one by one, quite unregretted by Luke, who thus was spared the initiative of turning his back on his friends. They did the turning, quite politely but very effectually. Luke scarcely noticed how he was dropping out of his former circle. He was over-absorbed and really did not care. Moreover his dress clothes were getting shabby.

To-night at the Langham, when he arrived at about seven o'clock so as to have an undisturbed half hour with Lou, Colonel Harris greeted him with outstretched hand and a cordial welcome.

"Hello, Luke, my boy! how goes it with you?"

Louisa said nothing, but her eyes welcomed him, and she drew him near her, on to the sofa in front of the fire, and allowed her hand to rest in his, for she knew how he loved the touch of it. People were beginning to say that Louisa Harris was getting old: she never had been good-looking, poor thing, but always smart, very smart – now she was losing her smartness, and what remained?

She had come up to town this autumn in last autumn's frocks! and the twins were after all being chaperoned by their aunt. Would that absurd engagement never be broken off? Fancy Louisa Harris married to a poor man! Why, she did not know how to do her hair, and dresses were still worn fastened at the back, and would be for years to come! Louisa Harris and no French maid! Cheap corsets and cleaned gloves! It was unthinkable.

Perhaps the engagement was virtually broken off – anyhow the wedding could never take place.

Unless Philip de Mountford happened to die.

But it did not look as if the engagement was broken off. Not at any rate on this raw November evening, when there was a dense fog outside, but a bright, cheery fire and plenty of light in the little sitting room at the Langham, and Luke sat on the sofa beside Louisa, and plain Louisa – in last autumn's gown – looking at him with her candid, luminous eyes.

"How is Lord Radclyffe?" asked Colonel Harris.

"Badly," replied Luke, "I am afraid. He looks very feeble, and his asthma I know must bother him. He was always worse in foggy weather."

"He ought to go to Algeciras. He always used to."

"I know," assented Luke dejectedly.

"Can't something be done? Surely, Luke, you haven't lost all your influence with him."

"Every bit, sir. Why, I hardly ever see him."

"Hardly ever see him?" ejaculated Colonel Harris, and I am afraid that he swore.

"I haven't been to Grosvenor Square for over six weeks. I am only allowed to see him when Philip is out, or by special permission from Philip. I won't go under such conditions."

"How that house must have altered!"

"You wouldn't know it, sir: All the old servants have gone, one after the other; they had rows with Philip and left at a month's notice. I suppose he has no idea how to set about getting new ones – I know I shouldn't! There's only a man and his wife, a sort of charwoman who cleans and cooks, and the man is supposed to look after Uncle Rad; but he doesn't do it, for he is half seas over most of the time."

"Good God!" murmured Colonel Harris.

"They have shut up all the rooms, except the library where Uncle Rad and Philip have their meals when they are at home. But they lunch and dine at their club mostly."

"What club do they go to? I called in at the Atheneum last night, thinking to find Radclyffe there, but the hall porter told me that he never went there now."

"No. He and Philip have joined some new club in Shaftesbury Avenue – The Veterans' I think it is called."

"Some low, mixed-up kind of place! Old Radclyffe must be out of his senses!"

"He likes it, so he tells me, because people don't come and bother him there."

"I should think not indeed. I wouldn't set foot in such a place."

"He goes there most evenings, and so does Philip – and it's so bad for Uncle Rad to be out late these foggy nights."

"You ought to make an effort and stop it, Luke."

"I have made many efforts, sir. But, as a matter of fact, I had made up my mind to make a final one to-night. Uncle Rad ought to go abroad, and I thought I would try to impress this on Philip. He can't be a bad man."

"Oh! can't he?" was Colonel Harris's muttered comment.

"At any rate, if I have no influence, he has, and he must exert it and get Uncle Rad down to Algeciras or anywhere he likes so long as it is well south."

Luke paused awhile, his face flushed with this expression of determination which must have caused his pride many a bitter pang. Then he resumed more quietly:

"It's rather humiliating, isn't it, to go to that man as a suppliant?"

"Don't go as a suppliant, my boy. You must insist on your uncle being properly looked after."

Colonel Harris thought all that sort of thing so easy. One always does before one has had a genuine tussle with the unpleasant realities of life; to the good country squire with an assured position, an assured income, assured influence, it seemed very easy indeed to insist. He himself never had to insist; things occurred round him and at his word, as it were, of themselves.

But Louisa, knowing how matters stood, made no suggestion. She knew that Luke would do his best, but that that best was of little avail now; as Philip de Mountford arranged so it would all come about.

Friends and well-wishers could but pray that the intruder was not a bad man, and that he had his uncle's health at heart.

She gave the signal to go, saying simply,

"We mustn't be late for dinner, father, must we?"

And she rose to go, held back by the hand, by Luke's fervent insistence.

He could not accustom himself to part from her, as he often had to do. It seemed absurd, but undeniable. He was supremely happy in her company, and snatched as much of it as ever he could; but the wrench was always awful and Louisa – subtly comprehensive – was conscious of the terrible pain which she gave him at every parting. She felt the repercussion of it in all her nerves, although her sound common-sense condemned the sensation as unreal.

To-night the feeling was even stronger than it had ever been before. At her first suggestion that it was time to go, an elusive current passed from him to her. He had been holding her hand, and his had been cool and only slightly on the quiver from time to time when her own fingers pressed more markedly against his. But now, all at once it seemed as if a sudden current of lava had penetrated his veins; his hand almost scorched her own, and though visibly it did not move, yet she felt the pulses throbbing and trembling beneath the flesh. The look of misery in his face made her own heart ache though she tried to smile with easy gaiety.

"To-morrow we go to the Temple Show together; don't forget, Luke."

Her words seemed to recall him from another world, and he quickly enough pulled himself together and helped her on with her cloak. Colonel Harris with the gentle tactfulness peculiar to kind hearts had loudly announced that he would be waiting in the hall.

"Anything the matter, Luke?" she asked as soon as her father had gone from the room.

He contrived to smile and to look unconcerned.

"Not particularly," he replied.

"You seem different to-night, somehow."

"How different?"

"I can't explain. But you are not yourself."

"Myself more than ever. My adoration for you is more uncontrolled – that is all."

She wrapped herself up in her furs, for it was silence that gave the best response. And then he said quite calmly:

"Will you go first. I'll switch off the light."

"Father will be waiting down stairs," she rejoined.

Then she went past him and out through the door, and he had to go back to the mantel-piece where one of the electric light switches was. He turned off the light; the room remained in darkness save where the dying embers of the fire threw a red glow on the sofa where she had sat with him, and the footstool on which her evening shoe had rested.

And the conventional man of the world, schooled from childhood onward to discipline and self-control, fell on both knees against that mute footstool, and leaning forward he pressed his burning lips against the silk cushions of the sofa, which still bore the impress and the fragrance of her exquisite shoulders.

Then he, too, went out of the room.

CHAPTER XII
SHALL A MAN ESCAPE HIS FATE?

On the way to the Danish Legation, Colonel Harris asked Luke what his plans were for the evening.

"I shall," replied Luke, "call at Grosvenor Square. I may find Uncle Rad, or Philip, or both at home. I mean to have a good tussle about this wintering abroad. It's really most important."

"I call it criminal," retorted Colonel Harris, "keeping a man in London who has been used to go south in the winter for the past twenty years at least."

"Uncle Rad is still fairly well now, though I do think he looks more feeble than usual. He ought to go at once."

"But," suggested Louisa, "he oughtn't to go alone."

"No. He certainly ought not."

"Would Mr. de Mountford go with him?"

"I don't think so."

"This new man of his, then?"

"That," said Luke hotly, "would be madness. The man is really a drunkard."

"But somebody ought to go."

"Edie would be only too willing – if she is allowed."

"Edie?" exclaimed Louisa.

And she added with a smile:

"What will Reggie Duggan have to say to that?"

"Nothing," he replied quietly. "Reggie Duggan has cried off."

"You don't mean that."

"He has given up Edie who has little or nothing a year, and become engaged to Marian Montagu who has eight thousand pounds a year of her own."

"Poor Edie!" murmured Louisa, whilst Colonel Harris's exclamation was equally to the point and far more forcible, and more particularly concerned the Honourable Reginald Duggan.

"Yes," rejoined Luke, "it has hit her hard, coming on the top of other things. There's no gainsaying the fact, is there, Colonel Harris, that we four brothers and sister owe something to Uncle Arthur's son?"

"The handle of a riding whip," came from out the depths of Colonel Harris's fur coat. "Stupid way parsons have of saying that to wish a man dead is tantamount to murder. I am committing murder now for a matter of that, for I wish that blackguard were buried in one of his native earthquakes."

"Would to God," added Luke, "that wishing alone would do it."

There was so much wrath, such hatred and contempt in those words that Louisa instinctively whispered:

"Hush, Luke! don't talk like that."

And Colonel Harris somewhat ostentatiously cleared his throat and said:

"Don't let us think of that confounded Philip."

Luke took leave of Colonel Harris and of Louisa at the door of the Danish Legation. He waited on the carpeted curb beneath the awning until he saw her white evening cloak disappear in the door-way.

The fog had become very dense. Just here where a number of carriage lamps threw light around, one could distinguish faces and forms immediately close to one, but as Luke turned away from the brilliant lights, he realized how thick was the pall which enveloped London to-night. He looked at his watch; it was close upon eight. The next few minutes brought him to the door of Lord Radclyffe's house.

He rang but obtained no answer. He rang again and again and finally came to the conclusion that his uncle and cousin were as usual dining out and that the elderly couple who did perfunctory service in the house were either asleep or out of ear-shot or had taken the opportunity of seeking amusement in a neighbouring public house.

But Luke was worried about Lord Radclyffe; moreover he had made up his mind that he would speak to him and to Philip to-night, with regard to the imperative wintering abroad for the old man.

The Veterans' Club was unknown to Luke, but Shaftesbury Avenue was not. He turned into Oxford Street and as taxicabs were now a forbidden luxury he hailed a passing omnibus and jumped into it, and thus was rapidly conveyed into the very heart of the fog which had found its haven around Piccadilly Circus.

CHAPTER XIII
THEY HAVE NO HEART

As to what occurred in the heart of the fog on that night in November four years ago, most of you no doubt will remember. Those who do not I must refer to the morning papers of the following day.

A perfect harvest for journalists. Gossip and detail sufficient to fill column upon column of newspaper: gossip that grew as the hours sped on, and the second day of fog pursued its monotonous course.

A man had been found murdered in a taxicab, his throat stabbed through from ear to ear, the jugular pierced, life absolutely extinct; the murderer vanished.

Drama in the midst of reality.

Such things are, you know. No amount of so-called realistic literature, no amount of sneers at what is dubbed melodrama, will prevent this fact occurring – and occurring very frequently in the streets of a mighty city.

Just a man murdered and the murderer disappeared. A very real thing that, and London has had to face such facts often enough, more often than has an audience at Drury Lane or the Adelphi. The superior-minded critic who spells British Drama with a capital B and D, and pronounces it Pritish Trama sat in the stalls of a London theatre on this very same foggy evening in November, four years ago. The play was one that did not appeal to the superior-minded critic: it was just a simple tale of jealousy which led to the breaking of that great commandment: "Thou shalt do no murder!"

And the superior-minded critic yawned behind a well gloved hand and dubbed the play melodramatic, unreal, and stagey, quite foreign to the life of to-day. But just at that hour – between nine and ten o'clock – a man was murdered in a taxicab, and his murderer vanished in the fog.

London doesn't dub such events melodrama; she does not sneer at them or call them unreal. She knows that they are real: there is nothing stagey or artificial about them: they have even become commonplace.

They occur so often! And most often whilst society dines or dances and the elect applaud with languid grace the newest play by Mr. Bernard Shaw.

Only in this case, the event gained additional interest. The murdered man was a personality. Some one whom everybody that was anybody had talked about, gossiped, and discussed for the past six months. Some one whom few had seen but many had heard about – Philip de Mountford – the son of the late Arthur de Mountford – Radclyffe's newly found heir, you know.

The news spread as only such news can spread, and when Society poured out from theatres, from houses in Grosvenor Square, or from the dining-room of the Carlton, every one had heard the news.

It was as if the sprite of gossip had been busy whispering in over-willing ears.

"Philip de Mountford has been murdered."

"He was found in a taxicab; his throat was cut from ear to ear."

"No! no! not cut, I understand. Pierced through with a sharp instrument – a stiletto, I presume."

"How horrible!"

"Poor Lord Radclyffe – such a tragedy – "

"He'll never live through it."

"He has looked very feeble lately."

"The scandal round the late Arthur's name broke him up, I think."

"It seems Arthur de Mountford had married a negress."

"No! no! Philip did not look like a half-caste. I saw him once or twice. He was dark but nice looking."

"Still, there was some scandal about the marriage!"

"Nothing to what this scandal will be!"

"What scandal?"

"Seek whom the crime benefits, you know."

"Then you think? – You really think Luke de Mountford did it?"

"I thought so the moment I heard the story."

"I've always thought that Luke de Mountford a queer sort of fellow."

"And he took his cousin's advent very badly."

"Well one can't wonder at that exactly – to lose a future peerage all of a sudden – and he has no private fortune either – "

"Poor beggar."

"I heard there were awful rows between the cousins until Lord Radclyffe himself turned Luke and the others out of the house."

"And now Philip de Mountford has been murdered."

"And the police will seek him whom the crime benefits."

"It certainly looks very suspicious."

"A real cause célèbre! Won't it be exciting."

"Something to read about in one's morning papers."

"I shall try and get reserved seats for the trial. I hate a crush, don't you?"

"Will they hang him, do you think?"

"If he is found guilty – English justice is no respecter of persons."

"How awful."

And tittle-tattle, senseless talk, inane remarks, were wafted on the grimy wings of the fog. They penetrated everywhere, in the lobbies of the theatres, the boudoir of madame and the smoking room of my lord. They penetrated to the magnificent reception rooms of the Danish Legation, and Louisa heard the remarks even before she knew the full details of the story. Louisa had a well-trained contralto voice, and had been asked to sing, in the course of the evening. Just as she stood in an outer room selecting her music, she heard a group of idlers – men and women – talking over the mysterious murder in the taxicab.

They had at first been unconscious of her presence. She had her back toward them, turning over the leaves of of her song. Suddenly there was a hush in the conversation; one of the chatterboxes must have pointed her out to the others.

Whereupon Louisa, serene and smiling, a roll of music in her hand, joined the merry group.

"Please," she said, "don't stop. I have heard nothing yet. And of course I want to know."

One of the men laughed inanely and the ladies murmured silly nothings.

"Oh!" said some one, "it mayn't be true. Such lots of wild rumours get about."

"What," asked Louisa placidly, "mayn't be true? Some one said just now that Philip de Mountford has been murdered."

"Well," murmured one of the ladies, "they say it was Mr. de Mountford; but they can't be sure, can they?"

The group was dissolving: almost, it seemed, as if it had vanished into thin air. When Louisa first heard them talking there were about a dozen men and women, a brilliant throng of gaily plumaged birds; now the ladies remembered that they wanted to hear the latest infant prodigy who had been engaged to entertain the guests at the post-dinner reception to-night, and the men too, feeling uncomfortable and awkward, made good their escape.

People – the pleasure-loving people of to-day – have no use for latent tragedy. Excitement, yes! and drama; but only from the secure distance of a private seat at an Old Bailey trial. The murder of Philip de Mountford could be discussed with quite an amount of enjoyment between a dinner party and a ball supper, but not in Louisa Harris's presence! By Gad! too much of a good thing you know!

Within a very few minutes Louisa found herself almost alone, just the one or two near her to whom she had directly spoken and – fortunately – Colonel Harris in the door-way, come to look for his daughter.

"The infant with the violin," he said as soon as he caught sight of Louisa, "is just finishing his piece, poor little rat! You promised you would sing next, Lou. What songs have you got?"

"I was just making a selection when you came, father. What would you like me to sing?"

With an unexpressed sigh of relief the last two of the original group of gossips dwindled away into the reception room beyond, congratulating themselves on having successfully engineered their exit.

"Dooced awkward, don't you know, Miss Harris asking questions."

"I suppose she doesn't realize – "

"She will soon enough – "

"She ought to have broken off her engagement long ago."

"Isn't it awful? – Poor thing."

Louisa, left alone with her father, could allow her nerves to ease their fearful tension. She had no need to hide from him the painful quiver of her lips, or the anxious frown across her brow.

"Do you know," she asked, "anything about this awful business, father?"

"There's a lot of gossip," he replied: his voice was not only gruff but hoarse, which showed that he was strangely moved.

"But," she insisted, "some truth in the gossip?"

"They say Philip de Mountford has been murdered."

"Who says so?"

"Some people have come on from the theatres, and men from the clubs. The streets are full of it – and evening papers have brought out midnight editions which are selling like hot cakes."

"And do they say that Luke has killed Philip de Mountford?"

"No" – with some hesitation – "they don't say that."

"But they hint at it."

"Newspaper tittle-tattle."

"How much is actual fact?"

"I understand," he explained, "that at nine o'clock or thereabouts two men in evening dress hailed a passing taxicab just outside the Lyric Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue and told the chauffeur to drive to Hyde Park corner, just by the railings of the Green Park. The driver drew up there and one of the two men got out. As he reclosed the door of the cab he leaned toward the interior and said cheerfully, "S'long old man. See you to-morrow." Then he told the chauffeur to drive on to 1 Cromwell Road opposite the museum, and turning on his heel disappeared in the fog. When the chauffeur drew up for the second time no one alighted from the cab. So he got down from his box and opened the door."

"The other man," murmured Louisa vaguely, "was in the cab – dead!"

"That's about it."

"With his throat pierced from ear to ear by a sharp instrument which might have been a skewer."

"You have heard it all then?"

"No, no!" she said hurriedly.

The room was swaying round her: the furniture started hopping and dancing. Louisa, who had never fainted in her life, felt as if the floor was giving way under her feet. Memory was unloading one of her storehouses, looking over the contents of a hidden cell, wherein she had put away a strange winter scene in Brussels, a taxicab, the ill-lighted boulevard, the chauffeur getting down from his box and finding a man crouched in the farther corner of the cab – dead – with his throat pierced from ear to ear by an instrument which might have been a skewer. And memory was raking out that cell, clearing it in every corner, trying to find the recollection of a certain morning in Battersea Park a year ago, when Louisa recounted her impressions of that weird scene and told the tale of this crime which she had almost witnessed. Memory found a distinct impression that she had told the tale at full length and with all the details which she knew. She remembered talking it all over, and, that when she did so, the ground in Battersea Park was crisp with the frost under her feet, and an inquisitive robin perched himself on the railings and then flew away accompanying her and another all the way along as far as the gates.