She, too, followed at last, leaving her bag and box in the corner of a
deserted office, and crossing the station yard tramped out in the thick
mud on to a bridge. The rain was falling in torrents, and crouching for
a minute in a doorway she made her bundles faster and buttoned up her
coat. Roofs jutted above her, pavements sounded under her feet, the
clock struck three near by. If there was an hotel anywhere there was no
one to give information about it. The last train had emptied itself, the
travellers had hurried off into the night, and not a foot rang upon the
pavements. The rain ran in a stream down her cap and on to her face;
down her sleeves and on to her hands.

A light further up the street attracted her attention, and walking
towards it she found that it came from an open doorway above which she
could make out the letters "Y.M.C.A."

She did not know with what complicated feelings she would come to regard
these letters--with what gratitude mixed with irritation, self-reproach
with greed.

Climbing the steps she looked inside. The hall of the building was paved
with stone, and on a couple of dozen summer chairs of cane sat as many
American officers, dozing in painful attitudes of unrest. By each ran a
stream of water that trickled from his clothes, and the streams, joining
each other, formed aimless rivers upon the floor.

The eye of a captain opened.

"Come in, ma'am," he said without moving. She wondered whether she
should.