He looked rather flushed and sodden, and the dyeing of his hair was more obvious than it had been.
"Fancy meeting you!" gasped Joanna.
"Er—how are you, Miss Godden?"
"Do you know when there's a train to Rye?"
"I'm sorry, I don't. I've just been saying good-bye to my son Lawrence—he's off to Africa or somewhere, but I couldn't wait till his train came in. I've got to go over to St. Pancras and catch the 10.50 for the north."
"Lawrence!"
Thank goodness, that had put her on another scent—now she would let him go.
"Yes—he's in the station. You'll see him if you're quick."
Joanna turned away, and he saw that the tears were running down her face. The woman had been drinking, that accounted for it all ... well, he wished Lawrence joy of her. It would do him good to have a drunken woman falling on his neck on a public platform.
The porter said there was not a train for Rye for another hour. He suggested that Joanna should put her luggage in the cloak-room and go and get herself a cup of tea—the porter knew the difference between a drunken woman and one who is merely faint from trouble and want of her breakfast. But Joanna's mind was somehow obsessed by the thought of Lawrence—her brother-in-law as she still called him in her heart—she wanted to see him—she remembered his kindness long ago ... and in her sorrow she was going back to the sorrow of those days ... somehow she felt as if Martin had just died, as if she had just come out of North Farthing House, alone, as she had come then—and now Lawrence was here, as he had been then, to kiss her and say "Dear Jo"....