He thought he heard her catch her breath sharply. Then, after a pause,

she said rather curtly: "Yes, of course I do. Don't tell me."

"What!" In the darkness he was suddenly alive. "_What_! You know! You

know the real reason! You _don't_! You think you do, but you don't! I'll

warrant you don't! You don't know everything!"

And the calm voice answered: "I know everything about you."

"You don't know that I love you!" (_There_! It was spoken now; a great

weight was taken off his heart, no matter whether she should be annoyed

or not! His heart beat wildly in exultation at having thrown off its

secret at long last.)

She answered: "Yes, I know that. But I didn't want you to tell me."

And he was amazed. His mind, half stupefied, accepted her knowledge of

his love for her almost as if it were a confession of her returned love

for him. It was as if the door were suddenly opened to everything he had

not dared to think of hitherto. He knew then that his mind was full of

dreaming of her, wild, passionate, tumultuous dreaming, dreaming that

lured him to the edge of wonderland and precarious adventure. But this

dreaming was unique in his experience; no slothful half-pathetic basking

in the fluency of his imagination, no easy inclination to people a world

with his own fancies rather than bridge the gulf that separated himself

from the true objectiveness of others; this was something new and

immense, a hungering of his soul for reality, a stirring of the depths

in him, a monstrous leaping renewal of his youth. No longer was his

imagination content to describe futile, sensual curves within the abyss

of his own self, returning cloyingly to its starting-point; it soared

now, embarked on a new quest, took leave of self entirely, drew him,

invisibly and incalculably, he knew not where. He knew not where, but he

knew with whom.... This strange, magnetic power that she possessed over

him drew him not merely to herself, but to the very fountain of life;

she was life, and he had never known life before. The reach of his soul

to hers was the kindling touch of two immensities, something at once

frantic and serene, simple and subtle, solemn and yet deep with

immeasurable heart-stirring laughter.

He said, half inarticulate: "What, Clare! You know that I love you?"

"Of course I do."

(Great God, what _was_ this thrill that was coming over him, this

tremendous, invincible longing, this molten restlessness, this yearning

for zest in life, for action, starry enthusiasm, resistless plunging

movement!)

"And you don't mind?"

"I _do_ mind. That's why I didn't want you to tell me.

"But what difference has telling you made, if you knew already?"

"No difference to me. But it will to you. You'll love me more now that

you know I know."

"Shall I?" His query was like a child's.

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

"I _know_. That's all."

They were standing there together in the dark lobby. His heart was

wildly beating, and hers--he wondered if it were as calm as her voice.

And then all suddenly he felt her arms upon him, and she,

Clare--Clare!--the reticent, always controlled Clare!--was crying,

actually crying in his arms that stupidly, clumsily held her. And

Clare's voice, unlike anything that it had ever been in his hearing

before, was talking--talking and crying at once--accomplishing the most

curious and un-Clare-like feats.

"Oh, my dear, _dear_ man--_why_ did you tell me? Why did you make

everything so hard for me and yourself?--Oh, God--let me be weak for

just one little minute--only one little minute!--I love you, Kenneth

Speed, just as you love me--we fit, don't we, as if the world had been

made for us as well as we for ourselves! Oh, what a man _I_ could have

made of you, and what a woman _you_ could have made of me! Dearest, I'm

so sorry.... When you've gone I shall curse myself for all this.... Oh,

my dear, my dear...." She sobbed passionately against his breast, and

then, suddenly escaping from his arms, began to speak in a voice more

like her usual one. "You must go now. There's nothing we can do. Please,

_please_ go now. No, no--don't kiss me.... Just go.... And let's forgive

each other for this scene.... Go, please go.... Good-night.... No, I

won't listen to you.... I want you to go.... Good night.... You haven't

said a word, I know, and I don't want you to. There's nothing to say at

all. Good night.... Good night...."

He found himself outside in High Street as in some strange

incomprehensible dream....

CHAPTER FIVE

I

All the way back to Millstead joy was raging in his heart, trampling

down all his woes and defying him to be miserable. Nothing in the

world--not his unhappiness with Helen, or the hatred that Millstead had

for him, or the perfidy of his own soul--could drive out that crowning,

overmastering triumph--the knowledge that Clare loved him. For the

moment he saw no difficulties, no dangers, no future that he could not

easily bear. Even if he were never to see Clare again, he felt that the

knowledge that she loved him would be an adequate solace to his mind for

ever. He was happy--deliriously, eternally happy. Helen's silences, the

school's ragging, the Head's sinister coldness, were bereft of all their

powers to hurt him; he had a secret armour, proof against all assault.

It seemed to him that he could understand how the early Christians,

fortified by some such inward armour, had walked calm-eyed and happy

into the arena of lions.

He did not go straight back to the school, but took a detour along the

Deepersdale road; he wanted to think, and hug his happiness, and

eventually calm it before seeing Helen. Then he wondered what sort of an

explanation he should give her of his absence; for, of course, she would

have received by this time full accounts of the ragging. In the end he

decided that he had better pretend to have been knocked a little silly

by the blow on his head and to have taken a walk into the country

without any proper consciousness of what he was doing.

He returned to Lavery's about eleven o'clock, admitting himself by his

own private key. In the corridor leading to his own rooms, Helen

suddenly ran into his arms imploring him to tell her if he was hurt,

where he had been, what had happened, and so on.

He said, speaking as though he had hardly recovered full possession of

his senses: "I--I don't know.... Something hit me.... I think I've been

walking about for a long time.... I'm all right now, though."

Her hands were feeling the bandages round his head.

"Who bandaged you?"

"I--I don't--I don't know." (After all, 'I don't know' was always a safe

answer.)

She led him into the red-tinted drawing-room. As he entered it he

suddenly felt the onrush of depression, as if, once within these four

walls, half the strength of his armour would be gone.

"We must have Howard to see you to-morrow morning," she said, her voice

trembling. "It was absolutely disgraceful! I could hear them from

here--I wondered whatever was happening." And she added, with just the

suspicion of tartness: "I'd no idea you'd ever let them rag you like

that."

"_Let_ them rag me?" he exclaimed. Then, remembering his part, he

stammered: "I--I don't know what--what happened. Something--somebody

perhaps--hit me, I think--that was all. It wasn't--it wasn't the

ragging. I could have--managed that."

Suddenly she said: "Whose mackintosh is that you're wearing?"

The tone of her voice was sharp, acrid, almost venomous.

He started, felt himself blushing, but hoped that in the reddish glow it

would not be observed. "I--I don't know," he stammered, still playing

for safety.

"You don't know?--Then we'll find out if we can. Perhaps there's a name

inside it."

She helped him off with it, and he, hoping devoutly that there might not

be a name inside it, watched her fascinatedly. He saw her examine the

inside of the collar and then throw the coat on the floor.

"So you've been there again," was all that she said. Once again he

replied, maddeningly: "I--I don't know."

She almost screamed at him: "Don't keep telling me you don't know!

You're not ill--there's nothing the matter with you at all--you're just

pretending! You couldn't keep order in the Big Hall, so you ran away

like a great coward and went to _that_ woman! Did you or didn't you?

Answer me!"

Never before, he reflected, had she quarrelled so shrilly and

rancorously; hitherto she had been restrained and rather pathetic, but

now she was shouting at him like a fishwife. It was a common domestic

bicker; the sort of thing that gets a good laugh on the music-hall

stage. No dignity in it--just sordid heaped-up abuse. "Great

coward"--"_That_ woman"--!

He dropped his lost-memory pose, careless, now, whether she found out or

not.

"I _did_ go to Clare," he said, curtly. "And that's Clare's raincoat.

Also Clare bandaged me--rather well, you must admit. Also, I've drunk

Clare's coffee and warmed myself at Clare's fire. Is there any other

confession you'd like to wring out of me?"

"Is there indeed? You know that best yourself."

"Perhaps you think I've been flirting with Clare?"

(As he said it he thought: Good God, why am I saying such things? It's

only making the position worse for us both.)

"I've no doubt she would if you'd given her half a chance."

The bitterness of her increased his own.

"Or is it that _I_ would if she'd given me half a chance? Are you quite

_sure_ which?"

"I'm sure of nothing where either of you are concerned. As for Clare,

she's been a traitor. Right from the time of first meeting you she's

played a double game, deceiving me and yourself as well. She's ruined

our lives together, she's spoilt our happiness and she won't be

satisfied till she's wrecked us both completely. I detest her--I loathe

her--I loathe her more than I've ever loathed anybody in the world.

Thank God I know her _now_--at least _I_ shall never trust her any more.

And if _you_ do, perhaps some day you'll pay as I've paid. Do you think

she's playing straight with you any more than she has with me? Do you

think _you_ can trust her? Are you taken in?"

The note of savage scorn in her voice made him reply coldly: "You've no

cause to talk about taking people in. If ever I've been taken in, as you

call it, it was by you, not by Clare!"

He saw her go suddenly white. He was half-sorry he had dealt her the

blow, but as she went on to speak, her words, fiercer than ever now,

stung him into gladness.

"All right! Trust her and pay for it! I could tell you things if I

wished--but I'm not such a traitor to her as she's been to me. I could

tell you things that would make you gasp, you wretched little fool!"

"They wouldn't make me gasp; they'd make me call you a damned liar.

Helen, I can understand you hating Clare; I can understand, in a sense,

the charge of traitor that you bring against her; but when you hint all

sorts of awful secrets about her I just think what a petty, spiteful

heart you must have! You ruin your own case by actions like that. They

sicken me."

"Very well, let them sicken you. You'll not be more sickened than I am.

But perhaps you think I can't do more than hint. I can and I will, since

you drive me to it. Next time you pay your evening visits to Clare ask

her what she thinks of Pritchard!"

"Pritchard! Pritchard!--What's he got to do with it?"

"Ask Clare."

"Why should I ask her?"

"Because, maybe, on the spur of the moment she wouldn't be able to think

of any satisfactory lie to tell you."

He felt anger rising up within him. He detested Pritchard, and the

mention of his name in connection with Clare infuriated him. Moreover,

his mind, always quick to entertain suspicion, pictured all manner of

disturbing fancies, even though his reason rejected them absolutely. He

trusted Clare; he would believe no evil of her. And yet, the mere

thought of it was a disturbing one.

"I wouldn't insult her by letting her think I listened to such gossip,"

he said, rather weakly.

There followed a longish pause; he thinking of what she had said and

trying to rid himself of the discomfort of associating Pritchard with

Clare, and she watching him, mockingly, as if conscious that her words

had taken root in his mind.

Then she went on: "So now you can suspect somebody else instead of me.

And while we're on the subject of Pritchard let me tell you something

else."

"_Tell me_!" The mere thought that there was anything else to tell in

which Pritchard was concerned was sufficient to give his voice a note of

peremptory harshness.

"I'm going to leave you."

"So you've said before."

"This time I mean it."

"Well?"

"And you can divorce me."

He stamped his foot with irritation. "Don't be ridiculous, Helen. A

divorce is absolutely out of the question."

"Why? Do you think we can go on like this any longer?"

"That's not the point. The point is that nothing in the circumstances

provides any grounds for a divorce."

"So that we've got to go on like this then, eh?"

"Not like this, I hope. I _still_ hope--that some day--"

She interrupted him angrily. "You _still_ hope! How many more secret

visits to Clare do you think you'll make,--how many more damnable lies

do you think you'll need to tell me--before you leave off still hoping?

You hateful little hypocrite! Why don't you be frank with me and

yourself and acknowledge that you love Clare? Why don't you run off with

her like a man?"

He said: "So you think that's what a man would do, eh?"

"Yes."

"One sort of a man, perhaps. Only I'm not that sort."

"I wish you were."

"Possibly. I also wish that you were another sort of woman, but it's

rather pointless wishing, isn't it?"

"Everything is rather pointless that has to do with you and me."

Suddenly he said: "Look here, Helen. Let's stop this talk. Just listen a

minute while I try to tell you how I'm situated. You and I are

married--"

"Really?"

"Oh, for God's sake, don't be stupid about it! We're married, and we've

got to put up with it for better, for worse. I visit Clare in an

entirely friendly way, though you mayn't believe it, and your suspicions

of me are altogether unfounded. All the same, I'm prepared to give up

her friendship, if that helps you at all. I'm prepared to leave

Millstead with you, get a job somewhere else, and start life afresh. We

have been happy together, and I daresay in time we shall manage to be

happy again. We'd emigrate, if you liked. And the baby--_our_ baby--our

baby that is to be--"

She suddenly rushed up to him with her arms raised and struck him with

both fists on his mouth. "Oh, for Christ's sake, stop that sort of talk!

I could kill you when you try to lull me into happiness with those

sticky, little sentimental words! _Our_ baby! Good God, am I to be made

to submit to you because of that? And all the time you talk of it you're

thinking of another woman! You're not livable with! Something's happened

to you that's made you cruel and hateful--you're not the man that I

married or that I ever would have married. I loathe and detest

you--you're rotten--rotten to the very root!"

He said, idly: "Do you think so?"

She replied, more restrainedly: "I've never met anybody who's altered so

much as you have in the last six months. You've sunk lower and lower--in

every way, until now--everybody hates you. You're simply a ruin."

Still quietly he said: "Yes, that's true." And then watching to see the

effect that his words had upon her, he added: "Clare said so."

"What!" she screamed, frenzied again. "Yes, _she_ knows! _She_ knows how

she's ruined you! She knows better than anybody! And she taunted you

with it! How I loathe her!"

"And me too, eh?"

She made no answer.

Then, more quietly than ever, he said: "Yes, Clare knows what a failure

I've been and how low I've sunk. But she doesn't think it's due to her,

and neither do I."

He would not say more than that. He wondered if she would perceive the

subtle innuendo which he half-meant and half did not mean; which he

would not absolutely deny, and yet would not positively affirm; which he

was prepared to hint, but only vaguely, because he was not perfectly

sure himself.

Whether or not she did perceive it he was not able to discover. She was

silent for some while and then said: "Well, I repeat what I said--I'm

going to leave you so that you can get a divorce."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"You can leave me if you wish, but I shall not get a divorce."

"Why not?"

"Because for one thing I shan't be able to."

"And why do you think you won't?"

"Because," he replied, coldly, "the law will not give me my freedom

merely because we have lived a cat-and-dog life together. The law

requires that you should not only leave me, but that you should run away

with another man and commit misconduct with him."

She nodded. "Yes, and that is what I propose to do."

"_What_!"

A curious silence ensued. He was utterly astounded, horrified, by her

announcement; she was smiling at him, mocking his astonishment. He

shouted at her, fiercely: "What's that!"

She said: "I intend to do what you said."

"What's that! You _what_?"

"I intend to do what you said. I shall run away with another man and

commit misconduct with him!"

"God!" he exclaimed, clenching his teeth, and stamping the floor. "It's

absurd. You can't. You wouldn't dare. Oh, it's impossible. Besides--good

God, think of the scandals! Surely I haven't driven you to _that_! Who

would you run away with?" His anger began to conquer his astonishment.

"You little fool, Helen, you can't do it! I forbid you! Oh, Lord, what a

mess we're in! Tell me, who's the man you're thinking of! I demand to

know. Who is he? Give me his name!"

And she said, cuttingly: "Pritchard."

On top of his boiling fury she added: "We've talked it over and he's

quite agreed to--to oblige me in the matter, so you see I really do mean

things this time, darling Kenneth!"

And she laughed at him.

II

Out of Lavery's he plunged and into the cold, frosty night of Milner's.

He had not stayed to hear the last echoes of her laughter dying away; he

was mad with fury; he was going to kill Pritchard. He ran up the steps

of Milner's and gave the bell a ferocious tug. At last the porter came,

half undressed, and by no means too affable to such a late visitor. "I

want to see Mr. Pritchard on very important business," said Speed. "Will

it take long, sir?" asked the porter, and Speed answered: "I can't say

how long it will take."--"Then," said the porter, "perhaps you wouldn't

mind letting yourself out when you've finished. I'll give you this key

till to-morrow morning--I've got a duplicate of my own." Speed took the

key, hardly comprehending the instructions, and rushed along the

corridor to the flight of steps along the wall of which was printed the

name: "Mr. H. Pritchard."

Arrived on Pritchard's landing he groped his way to the sitting-room

door and entered stealthily. All was perfectly still, except for one or

two detached snores proceeding from the adjoining dormitory. In the

starshine that came through the window he could see, just faintly, the

outline of Pritchard's desk, and Pritchard's armchair, and Pritchard's

bookshelves, and Pritchard's cap and gown hung upon the hook on the door

of Pritchard's bedroom. _His_ bedroom! He crept towards it, turned the

handle softly, and entered. At first he thought the bed was empty, but

as he listened he could hear breathing--steady, though faint. He began

to be ever so slightly frightened. Being in the room alone with

Pritchard asleep was somehow an unnerving experience; like being alone

in a room with a dead body. For, perhaps, Pritchard would be a dead body

before the dawn rose. And again he felt frightened because somebody

might hear him and come up and think he was in there to steal

something--Pritchard's silver wrist-watch or his rolled gold sleeve

links, for instance. Somehow Speed was unwilling to be apprehended for

theft when his real object was only murder.

He struck a match to see if it really was Pritchard in bed; it would be

a joke if he murdered somebody else by mistake, wouldn't it? ...

Yes, it was Pritchard.

Then Speed, looking down at him, realised that he did not hate him so

much for his disgraceful overtures to Helen as for the suspicion of some

sinister connection with Clare.

Suddenly Pritchard opened his eyes.

"Good God, Speed!" he cried, blinking and sitting up in bed. "Whatever's

the matter! What's--what's happened? Anything wrong?"

And Speed, startled out of his wits by the sudden awakening, fell

forward across Pritchard's bed and fainted.

So that he did not murder Pritchard after all....

III

Vague years seemed to pass by, and then out of the abyss came the voice

of the Head booming: "Um, yes, Mr. Speed ... I think, in the

circumstances, you had better--um, yes, take a holiday at the

seaside.... You are very clearly in a highly dangerous--um--nervous

state ... and I will gladly release you from the rest of your term's

duties.... No doubt a rest will effect a great and rapid improvement....

My wife recommends Seacliffe--a pleasant little watering-place--um, yes,

extremely so.... As for the incidents during preparation last evening, I

think we need not--um--discuss them at present.... Oh yes, most

certainly--as soon as convenient--in fact, an early train to-morrow

morning would not incommode us.... I--um, yes--I hope the rest will

benefit you ... oh yes, I hope so extremely...."

And he added: "Helen is--um--a good nurse."

Then something else of no particular importance, and then: "I shall put

Mr.--um--Pritchard in charge of--um--Lavery's while you are absent, so

you need not--um--worry about your House...."

Speed said, conquering himself enough to smile: "Oh, no, I shan't worry.

I shan't worry about anything."

"Um--no, I hope not. I--I hope not.... My wife and I--um--we both hope

that you will not--um--worry...."

Then Speed noticed, with childish curiosity, that the Head was attired

in a sky-blue dressing-gown and pink-striped pyjamas....

Where was he, by the way? He looked round and saw a tiny gas-jet burning

on a wall bracket; near him was a bed ... Pritchard's bed, of course.

But why was the Head in Pritchard's bedroom, and why was Clanwell there

as well?

Clanwell said sepulchrally: "Take things easy, old man. I thought

something like this would happen. You've been overdoing it."

"Overdoing what?" said Speed.

"Everything," replied Clanwell.

The clock on the dressing-table showed exactly midnight.

"Good-bye," said Speed.

Clanwell said: "I'm coming over with you to Lavery's."

The Head departed, booming his farewell. "Good night.... My--um--my best

wishes, Speed ... um, yes--most certainly.... Good night."

Then Pritchard said: "Perhaps I can sleep again now. Enough to give me a

breakdown, I should think. Good-night, Speed. And good luck. I wish

they'd give _me_ a holiday at Seacliffe.... Good night, Clanwell."

As they trod over the soft turf of the quadrangle they heard old

Millstead bells calling the hour of midnight.

Speed said: "Clanwell, do you remember I once told you I could write a

novel about Millstead?"

"Yes, I remember it."

"Well, I might have done it then. But I couldn't now. When I first came

here Millstead was so big and enveloping--it nearly swallowed me up. But

now--it's all gone. I might be living in a slum tenement for all it

means to me. Where's it all gone to?"

"You're ill, Speed. It'll come back when you're better."

"Yes, but when shall I be better?"

"When you've been away and had a rest."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. You don't suppose you're dying, do you?"

"No. But there are times when I could suppose I'm dead."

"Nonsense, man. You're too morbid. Why don't you go for a sea voyage?

Pull yourself together, man, and don't brood."

Clanwell added: "I'm damned sorry for you--what can I do? Would you like

me to come in Lavery's with you for a while? You're not nervous of being

alone, are you?"

"Oh no. And besides, I shan't be alone. My wife's there."

"Of course, of course. Stupid of me. I was for the moment

forgetting--forgetting--"

"That I was married, eh?"

"No, no, not exactly--I had just forgotten--well, you know how even the

most obvious things sometimes slip the memory.... Well, here you are.

Have you the key? And you'll be all right, eh? Sure? Well, now, take a

long rest and get better, won't you? Good night--Good night--sure you're

all right? Good night!"

Clanwell raced back across the turf to his own House and Speed admitted

himself to Lavery's and sauntered slowly down the corridor to his room.

Helen was sitting in front of the fire, perfectly still and quiet.

He said: "Helen!"

"Well!" She spoke without the slightest movement of her head or body.

"We've got to go away from Millstead."

He wondered how she would take it. It never occurred to him that she was

prepared. She answered: "Yes. Mother's been over here to tell me all

about it. We're going to Seacliffe in the morning. Catching the 9.5.

What were you doing in Pritchard's bedroom?"

"Didn't they tell you?" he enquired sarcastically.

"How could they? They didn't know. They found you fainting across the

bed, and Pritchard said he woke up and found you staring at him."

"And you can't guess why I went there?"

"I suppose you wanted to ask him if it were true that he and I were

going away together."

"No, not quite. I wanted to murder him so that it could never be true."

"What!"

"Yes. What I said."

She made no answer, and after a long pause he said: "You're not in love

with Pritchard, are you?"

She replied sorrowfully: "Not a little bit. In fact, I rather dislike

him. You're the only person I love."

"When you're not hating me, eh?"

"Yes, that's right. When I'm not hating you."

Then after a second long pause he suddenly decided to make one last

effort for the tranquillising of the future.

"Helen," he began pleadingly, "Can't you stop hating me? Is it too late

to begin everything afresh? Can't we----"

Then he stopped. All the eloquence went out of him suddenly, like the

air out of a suddenly pricked balloon. His brain refused to frame the

sentences of promise and supplication that he had intended. His brain

was tired--utterly tired. He felt he did not care whether Helen stayed

with him or not, whether she ran away with Pritchard or not, whether his

own relationship with her improved, worsened, or ceased altogether,

whether anything in the world happened or did not happen. All he wanted

was peace--peace from the eternal torment of his mind.

She suddenly put her arms round him and kissed him passionately. "We

_will_ begin again, Kenneth," she said eagerly. "We _will_ be happy

again, won't we? Oh yes, I know _we_ will. When we get to Seacliffe

we'll have a second honeymoon together, what do you think, darling?"

"Rather," he replied, with simulated enthusiasm. In reality he felt

sick--physically sick. Something in the word "honeymoon" set his nerves

on edge. Poor little darling Helen--why on earth had he ever married

such a creature? They would never be happy together, he was quite

certain of that. And yet ... well, anyway, they had to make the best of

it. He smiled at her and returned her kisses, and then suggested packing

the trunk in readiness for the morning.

CHAPTER SIX

I

In the morning there arrived a letter from Clare. He guessed it from the

postmark, and was glad that she had the tact to type the address on the

envelope. When he tore it open he saw that the letter was also

typewritten, and signed merely "C. H.", so that he was able to read it

at the breakfast-table without any fears of Helen guessing. It was a

curious sensation, that of reading a letter from Clare with Helen so

near to him, and so unsuspecting.

It ran:--

"DEAR KENNETH SPEED--As I told you last night I feel thoroughly

disgusted with myself--I knew I should. I'm very sorry I acted as I did,

though of course everything I said was true. If you take my advice

you'll take Helen right away and never come near Millstead any more.

Begin life with her afresh, and don't expect it to be too easy. As for

me--you'd better forget if you can. We mustn't ever see each other

again, and I think we had better not write, either. I really mean that

and I hope you won't send me any awfully pathetic reply as it will only

make things more awkward than they are. There was a time when you

thought I was hard-hearted; you must try and think so again, because I

really don't want to have anything more to do with you. It sounds

brutal, but it isn't, really. You have still time to make your life a

success, and the only way to do it in the present circumstances is to

keep away from my evil influence. So good-bye and good luck.

Yours--C.H."--"P.S. If you ever do return to Millstead you won't find me

there."

He was so furious that he tore the letter up and flung it into the fire.

"What is it?" enquired Helen.

He forced himself to reply: "Oh, only a tradesman's letter."

She answered, with vague sympathy: "Everybody's being perfectly horrid,

aren't they?"

"Oh, I don't care," he replied, shrugging his shoulders and eating

vigorously. "I don't care a damn for the lot of them."

She looked at him in thoughtful silence.

Towards the end of the meal he had begun to wonder if it had been

Clare's object to put him in just that mood of fierce aggressiveness and

truculence. He wished he had not thrown the letter into the fire. He

would like to have re-read it, and to have studied the phrasing with a

view to more accurate interpretation.

That was about seven-thirty in the morning. The bells were just

beginning to ring in the dormitories and the floors above to creak with

the beginnings of movement. It was a dull morning in early March, cold,

but not freezing; the sky was full of mist and clouds, and very likely

it would rain later. As he looked out of the window, for what might be

the last time in his life, he realised that he was leaving Millstead

without a pang. It astonished him a little. There was nothing in the

place that he still cared for. All his dreams were in ruins, all his

hopes shattered, all his enthusiasms burned away; he could look out upon

Millstead, that had once contained them all, without love and without

malice. It was nothing to him now; a mere box of bricks teeming with

strangers. Even the terror of it had vanished; it stirred him to no

emotion at all. He could leave it as casually as he could a railway

station at which he had stopped _en route_.

And when he tried, just by way of experiment, to resuscitate for a

moment some of the feelings he had once had, he was conscious only of

immense mental strain, for something inside him that was sterile and

that ached intolerably. He remembered how, on the moonlight nights of

his first term, his eyes would fill with tears as he saw the great

window-lit blocks of Milner's and Lavery's rising into the pale night.

He remembered it without passion and without understanding. He was so

different now from what he had been then. He was older now; he was

tired; his emotions had been wrung dry; some of him was a little

withered.

An hour later he left Millstead quite undramatically by the 9.5. The

taxi came to the door of Lavery's at ten minutes to nine, while the

school was in morning chapel; as he rode away and out of the main gates

he could hear, faintly above the purr of the motor, the drone of two

hundred voices making the responses in the psalms. It did not bring to

his heart a single pang or to his eye a single tear. Helen sat beside

him and she, too, was unmoved; but she had never cared for Millstead.

She was telling him about Seacliffe.

As the taxi bounded into the station yard she said: "Oh, Kenneth, did

you leave anything for Burton?"

"No," he answered, curtly.

"You ought to have done," she said.

That ended their conversation till they were in the train.

As he looked out of the window at the dull, bleak fen country he

wondered how he could ever have thought it beautiful. Mile after mile of

bare, grey-green fields, ditches of tangled reeds, forlorn villages,

trees that stood solitary in the midst of great plains. He saw every now

and then the long, flat road along which he had cycled many times to

Pangbourne. And in a little while Pangbourne itself came into view, with

its huge dominating cathedral round which he had been wont formerly to

conduct little enthusiastic parties of Millsteadians; Pangbourne had

seemed to him so pretty and sunlit in those days, but now all was dull

and dreary, and the mist was creeping up in swathes from the fenlands.

Pangbourne station...

Again he wished that he had not burnt Clare's letter.

At noon he was at Seacliffe, booking accommodation at the Beach Hotel.

II

"Heaven knows what we are going to do with ourselves here," he remarked

to Helen during lunch.

"You've got to rest," replied Helen.

He went on to a melancholy mastication of bread. "So far as I can see,

we're the only visitors in the entire hotel."

"Well, Kenneth, March is hardly the season, is it?"

"Then why did we come here? I'd much rather have gone to town, where

there's always something happening. But a seaside-place in winter!--is

there anything in the world more depressing?"

"There's nobody in the world more depressing than you are yourself," she

answered tartly. "It isn't my fault we've come here in March. It isn't

my fault we've come here at all. And what good would London have done

for you? It's rest you want, and you'll get it here."

"Heavens, yes--I'll get it all right."

After a silence he smiled and said: "I'm sorry, Helen, for being such a

wet blanket. And you're quite right, it isn't your fault--not any of it.

What can we do this afternoon?"

"We can have a walk along the cliffs," she answered.

He nodded and took up a week-old copy of the _Seacliffe Gazette_.

"That's what we'll do," he said, beginning to read.

So that afternoon they had a walk along the cliffs.

In fact there was really nothing at all to do in Seacliffe during the

winter season except to take a walk along the cliffs. Everything wore an

air of depression--the dingy rain-sodden refreshment kiosks, the

shuttered bandstand, the rusting tram rails on the promenade, along

which no trams had run since the preceding October, the melancholy pier

pavilion, forlornly decorated with the tattered advertisements of last

season's festivities. Nothing remained of the town's social amenities

but the cindered walk along the cliff edges, and this, except for

patches of mud and an absence of strollers, was much the same as usual.

Speed and Helen walked vigorously, as people do on the first day of

their holidays--grimly determined to extract every atom of nourishment

out of the much-advertised air. They climbed the slope of the Beach

hill, past the gaunt five-storied basemented boarding-houses, past the

yachting club-house, past the marine gardens, past the rows of glass

shelters, and then on to the winding cinder-path that rose steeply to

the edge of the cliffs. Meanwhile the mist turned to rain and the sea

and the sky merged together into one vast grey blur without a horizon.

Then they went back to the Beach Hotel for tea.

Then they read the magazines until dinner-time, and after dinner, more

magazines until bedtime.

The next day came the same routine again; walk along the cliffs in the

morning; walk along the cliffs in the afternoon; tea; magazines; dinner;

magazines; bed. Speed discovered in the hotel a bookcase entirely filled

with cheap novels that had been left behind by previous visitors. He

read some of them until their small print gave him a headache. Helen

revelled in them. In the mornings, by way of a variant from the cliff

walk, they took to sitting on the windless side of the municipal

shelters, absorbed in the novels. It was melancholy, and yet Speed felt

with some satisfaction that he was undoubtedly resting, and that, on the

whole, he was enduring it better than he had expected.

III

Then slowly there grew in him again the thought of Clare. It was as if,

as soon as he gained strength at all, that strength should bring with it

turmoil and desire, so that the only peace that he could ever hope for

was the joyless peace of exhaustion. The sharp sea-salt winds that

brought him health and vigour brought him also passion, passion that

racked and tortured him into weakness again.

He wished a thousand times that he had not burned Clare's letter. He

felt sure that somewhere in it there must have been a touch of verbal

ambiguity or subtlety that would have given him some message of hope; he

could not believe that she had sent him merely a letter of dismissal. In

one sense, he was glad that he had burned the letter, for the

impossibility of recovering it made it easier for him to suppose

whatever he wished about it. And whatever he wished was really only one

wish in the world, a wish of one word: Clare. He wanted her, her

company, her voice, her movements around him, the sight of her, her

quaint perplexing soul that so fitted in with his own, her baffling

mysterious understandings of him that nobody else had ever had at all.

He wanted her as a sick man longs for health; as if he had a divine

right to her, and as if the withholding of her from him gave him a

surging grudge against the world.

One dreary interval between tea at the hotel and dinner he wrote to her.

He wrote in a mood in which he cared not if his writing angered her or

not; her silence, if she did not reply, would be his answer. And if she

did not reply, he vowed solemnly to himself that he would never write to

her again, that he would put her out of his life and spend his energies

in forgetting her.

He wrote:--

"DEAR CLARE--I destroyed your letter, and I can't quite remember whether

it forbade me to reply or not. Anyhow, that's only my excuse for it. I'm

having a dreadfully dull time at Seacliffe--we're the only visitors at

the hotel and, so far as I can see, the only visitors in Seacliffe at

all. I'm not exactly enjoying it, but I daresay it's doing me good.

Thanks ever so much for your advice--I mean to profit by it--most of it,

at any rate. But mayn't I write to you--even if you don't write to me? I

do want to, especially now. May I!--Yours, KENNETH SPEED."

No answer to that. For nearly a week he scanned the rack in the

entrance-hall, hoping to see his own name typewritten on an envelope,

for he guessed that even if she did reply she would take that

precaution. But in vain his hurried and anxious returns from the

cliff-walks; no letter was there. And at last, tortured to despair, he

wrote again.

"DEAR CLARE--You haven't answered my letter. I did think you would, and

now I'm a prey to all sorts of awful and, no doubt, quite ridiculous

fears. And I'm going to ask you again, half-believing that you didn't

receive my last letter--may I write to you? May I write to you whenever

I want? I can't have your company, I know--surely you haven't the heart

to deny me the friendship I can get by writing to you? You needn't

answer: I promise I will never ask for an answer. I don't care if the

letters I write offend you or not; there is only one case in which I

should like you to be good enough to reply to me and tell me not to

write again. And that is if you were beginning to forget me--if letters

from me were beginning to be a bore to you. _Please_, therefore, let me

write.--Yours, KENNETH SPEED."

To that there came a reply by return of post:

"MY DEAR KENNETH SPEED,--I think correspondence between us is both

unwise and unnecessary, but I don't see how I can prevent you from

writing if you wish to. And you need not fear that I shall forget

you.--CLARE."

He replied, immediately, and with his soul tingling with the renewal of

happiness:

"DEAR CLARE,--Thank God you can't stop me from writing, and thank God

you know you can't. I don't feel unhappy now that I can write to you,

now that I know you will read what I write. I feel so unreticent where

you are concerned--I want you to _understand_, and I don't really care,

when you have understood, whether you condemn or not. This is going

(perhaps) to be a longish letter; I'm alone in the lounge of this

entirely God-forsaken hotel--Helen is putting on a frock for dinner, and

I've got a quarter-of-an-hour for you.

"This is what I've found out since I've come to Seacliffe. I've found

out the true position of you and me. You've sunk far deeper into my soul

than I have ever guessed, and I don't honestly know how on earth I'm to

get rid of you! For the last ten days I've been fighting hard to drive

you away, but I'm afraid I've been defeated. You're there still,

securely entrenched as ever, and you simply won't budge. The only times

I don't think of you are the times when I'm too utterly tired out to

think of anything or anybody. Worse still, the stronger I get the more I

want you. Why can't I stop it? You yourself said during our memorable

interview after the 'rag' that it wasn't a bit of good trying to stop

loving somebody. So _you_ know, as well as me--am I to conclude that,

you Hound of Heaven?

"But you can't get rid of me, I hope, any more than I can of you. You

may go to the uttermost ends of the earth, but it won't matter. I shall

still have you, I shall always bore you--in fact, I've got you now,

haven't I? Don't we belong to each other in spite of ourselves?

"I tell you, I've tried to drive you out of my mind. And I really think

I might succeed better if I didn't try. Therefore, I shan't try any

more. How can you deliberately try to forget anybody? The mere

deliberation of the effort rivets them more and more eternally on your

memory!

"Helen and I are getting on moderately well. We don't quarrel. We

exchange remarks about the weather, and we discuss trashy novels which

we both have read, and we take long and uninteresting walks along the

cliffs and admire the same views, over and over again. Helen thinks the

rest must be doing me a lot of good. Oh my dear, dear Clare, am I wicked

because I sit down here and write to you these pleading, treacherous

letters, while my wife dresses herself upstairs without a thought that I

am so engaged? Am I really full of sin? I know if I put my case before

ninety-nine out of a hundred men and women what answer I should receive.

But are you the hundredth? I don't care if you are or not; if this is

wickedness, I clasp it as dearly as if it were not. I just can't help

it. I lie awake at nights trying to think nice, husbandly things about

Helen, and just when I think I've got really interested in her I find

it's you I've really been thinking about and not Helen at all.

"There must be some wonderful and curious bond between us, some sort of

invisible elastic. It wouldn't ever break, no matter how far apart we

went, but when it's stretched it hurts, hurts us both, I hope, equally.

Is it really courage to go on hurting ourselves like this? What is the

good of it? Supposing--I only say supposing--supposing we let go, let

the elastic slacken, followed our heart's desire, what then? Who would

suffer? Helen, I suppose. Poor Helen!--I mustn't let her suffer like

that, must I?

"It wasn't real love that I ever had for her; it was just mere physical

infatuation. And now that's gone, all that's left is just dreadful

pity--oh, pity that will not let me go! And yet what good is pity--the

sort of pity that I have for her?

"Ever since I first knew you, you have been creeping into my heart ever

so slowly and steadily, and I, because I never guessed what was

happening, have yielded myself to you utterly. In fact, I am a man

possessed by a devil--a good little devil--yet--"

He looked round and saw Helen standing by the side of him. He had not

heard her approach. She might have been there some while, he reflected.

Had she been looking over his shoulder? Did she know to whom was the

letter he was writing?

He started, and instinctively covered as much of the writing as he could

with the sleeve of his jacket.

"I didn't know you still wrote to Clare," she said, quietly.

"Who said I did?" he parried, with instant truculence.

"You're writing to her now."

"How do you know?"

"Never mind how I know. Answer me: you are, aren't you?"

"I refuse to answer such a question. Surely I haven't to tell you of

every letter I write. If you've been spying over my shoulder it's your

own fault. How would you like me to read all the letters you write?"

"I wouldn't mind in the least, Kenneth, if I thought you didn't trust

me."

"Well, I do trust you, you see, and even if I didn't I shouldn't attempt

such an unheard--of liberty. And if you can't trust me without censoring

my correspondence, I'm afraid you'll have to go on mistrusting me."

"I don't want to censor your correspondence. I only want you to answer

me a straight question: is that a letter to Clare that you're writing?"

"It's a most improper question, and I refuse to answer it."

"Very well.... I think it's time for dinner; hadn't you better finish

the letter afterwards? Unless of course, it's very important."

During dinner she said: "I don't feel like staying in from now until

bedtime. You'll want to finish your letter, of course, so I think, if

you don't mind, I'll go to the local kinema."

"You can't go alone, can you?"

"There's nobody can very easily stop me, is there? You don't want to

come with me, I suppose?"

"I'm afraid I don't care for kinemas much? Isn't there a theatre

somewhere?"

"No. Only a kinema. I looked in the _Seacliffe Gazette_. In the summer

there are Pierrots on the sands, of course."

"So you want to go alone to the kinema?"

"Yes."

"All right. But I'll meet you when it's over. Half-past ten, I suppose?"

"Probably about then. You don't mind me leaving you for a few hours, do

you?"

"Oh, not at all. I hope you have a good time. I'm sure I can quite

understand you being bored with Seacliffe. It's the deadest hole I've

ever struck."

"But it's doing you good, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, I daresay it is in _that_ way."

She added, after a pause: "When you get back to the lounge you'll wonder

where you put your half-written letter."

"What do you mean?" He suddenly felt in his inside coat-pocket.

"Why--where is it? I thought I put it in my pocket. Who's got it? Have

_you_?"

"Yes. You thought you put it in your pocket, I know. But you didn't. You

left it on the writing table and I picked it up when you weren't

looking."

"Then you _have_ got it?"

"Yes, I have got it."

He went red with rage. "Helen, I don't want to make a scene in front of

the servants, but I insist on you giving up to me that letter. You've

absolutely no right to it, and I demand that you give it me

immediately."

"You shall have it after I've read it."

"Good God, Helen, don't play the fool with me! I want it now, this

minute! Understand, I mean it! I want it now!"

"And I shan't give it to you."

He suddenly looked round the room. There was nobody there; the waitress

was away; the two of them were quite alone. He rose out of his chair and

with a second cautious glance round him went over to her and seized her

by the neck with one hand while with the other he felt in her corsage

for the letter. He knew that was where she would have put it. The very

surprise of his movement made it successful. In another moment he had

the letter in his hand. He stood above her, grim and angry, flaunting

the letter high above her head. She made an upward spring for his hand,

and he, startled by her quick retaliation, crumpled the letter into a

heap and flung it into the fire at the side of the room. Then they both

stared at each other in silence.

"So it's come to that," she said, her face very white. She placed her

hand to her breast and said: "By the way, you've hurt me."

He replied: "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I didn't intend to. I simply

wanted to get the letter, that's all."

"All right," she answered. "I'll excuse you for hurting me."

Then the waitress entered with the sweet and their conversation was

abruptly interrupted.

After dinner he went back into the lounge and took up an illustrated

paper. Somehow, he did not feel inclined to try to rewrite the letter to

Clare. And in any case, he could not have remembered more than bits of

it; it would have to be a fresh letter if he wrote at all.

Helen came downstairs to him with hat and coat on ready for outdoors.

"Good-bye," she said, "I'm going."

He said: "Hadn't I better take you down to the place? I don't mind a bit

of a walk, you know."

She answered: "Oh, no, don't bother. It's not far. You get on with your

letter-writing."

Then she paused almost at the door of the lounge, and said, coming back

to him suddenly: "Kiss me before I go, Kenneth."

He kissed her. Then she smiled and went out.

An hour later he started another letter to Clare.

"MY DEAR, _dear_ CLARE,--I'm so pleased it has not all come to an end! ...

All those hours we spent together, all the work we have shared, all

our joy and laughter and sympathy together--it could not have counted

for nothing, could it? We dare not have put an end to it; we should fear

being haunted all our lives. We ..."

Then the tired feeling came on him, and he no longer wanted to write,

not even to Clare. He put the hardly-begun letter in his

pocket--carefully, this time--and took up the illustrated paper again.

He half wished he had gone with Helen to the kinema.... A quarter to

ten.... It would soon be time for him to stroll out and meet her.

IV

Walking along the promenade to the beach kinema he solemnly reviewed his

life. He saw kaleidoscopically his childhood days at Beachings Over,

then the interludes at Harrow and Cambridge, and then the sudden

tremendous plunge--Millstead! It seemed to him that ever since that

glowering April afternoon when he had first stepped into Ervine's dark

study, events had been shaping themselves relentlessly to his ruin. He

could see himself as a mere automaton, moved upon by the calm accurate

fingers of fate. His meeting with Helen, his love of her and hers for

him, their marriage, their slow infinitely wearisome estrangement--all

seemed as if it had been planned with sinister deliberation. Only one

section of his life had been dominated by his own free will, and that

was the part of it that had to do with Clare. He pondered over the

subtle differentiation, and decided at last that it was invalid, and

that fate had operated at least as much with Clare as with Helen. And

yet, for all that, the distinction remained in his mind. His life with

Helen seemed to press him down, to cramp him in a narrow groove, to

deprive him of all self-determination; it was only when he came to Clare

that he was free again and could do as he liked. Surely it was he

himself, and not fate, that drew him joyously to Clare.

The mist that had hovered over Seacliffe all day was now magically

lifted, and out of a clear sky there shone a moon with the slightest of

yellow haloes encircling it. The promenade was nearly deserted, and in

all the tall cliff of boarding-houses along the Marine Parade there was

hardly a window with a light in it. The solitary redness of the lamp on

the end of the pier sent a soft shimmer over the intervening water; the

sea, at almost high tide, was quite calm. Hardly a murmur of the waves

reached his ears as he strolled briskly along, but that was because they

were right up against the stone wall of the promenade and had no beach

of pebbles to be noisy with. He leaned over the railings and saw the

water immediately beneath him, silvered in moonlight. Seacliffe was

beautiful now.... Then he looked ahead and saw the garish illuminations

of the solitary picture-palace that Seacliffe possessed, and he wondered

how Helen or anybody could prefer a kinema entertainment to the glory of

the night outside. And yet, he reflected, the glory of the night was a

subjective business; it required a certain mood; whereas the kinema

created its own mood, asking and requiring nothing. Poor Helen!

Why should pity for her have overwhelmed him suddenly at that moment? He

did not love her, not the least fraction; yet he would have died for her

if such had need to be. If she were in danger he would not stay to

think; he would risk life or limb for her sake without a premonitory

thought. He almost longed for the opportunity to sacrifice himself for

her in some such way. He felt he owed it to her. But there was one

sacrifice that was _too_ hard--he could not live with her in

contentment, giving up Clare. He knew he couldn't. He saw quite clearly

in the future the day when he would leave Helen and go to Clare. Not

fate this time, but the hungering desire of his heart, that would not

let him rest.

And yet, was not this same desire fate itself, his own fate, leading him

on and further to some inevitable end? Only that he did not fear it. He

opened wide his arms, welcoming it, longing for and therefore

unconscious of its domination.

He stood in front of the gilded dinginess of the picture-place,

pondering on his destiny, when there came up to him a shabby little man

in a long tattered overcoat, who asked him for a light. Speed, who was

so anxious not to be a snob that he usually gave to strangers the

impression of being one, proffered a box of matches and smiled. But for

the life of him he could not think of anything to say. He felt he ought

to say something, lest the other fellow might think him surly; he racked

his brain for some appropriate remark and eventually said: "Nice night."

The other lit the stump of a cigarette contemplatively and replied:

"Yes. Nice night.... Thanks.... Waiting for somebody?"

"Yes," replied Speed, rather curtly. He had no desire to continue the

conversation, still less to discuss his own affairs.

"Rotten hole, Seacliffe, in winter," resumed the stranger, showing no

sign of moving on.

"Yes," agreed Speed.

"Nothing to do--nowhere to go--absolutely the deadest place on God's

earth. I live here and I know. Every night I take a stroll about this

time and to-night's bin the first night this year I've ever seen anything

happen at all."

"Indeed?"

The stranger ignored the obvious boredness of Speed's voice, and

continued: "Yes. That's the truth. But it happened all right to-night.

Quite exciting, in fact."

He looked at Speed to see if his interest was in any way aroused. Such

being not yet so he remarked again: "Yes, quite exciting." He paused and

added:

"Bit gruesome perhaps--to some folks."

Speed said, forcing himself to be interested:

"Why, what was it?"

And the other, triumphant that he had secured an attentive audience at

last, replied: "Body found. Pulled up off the breakwater.... Drowned, of

course."

Even now Speed was only casually interested.

"Really? And who was it?"

"Don't know the name.... A woman's body."

"Nobody identified her yet?"

"Not yet. They say she's not a Seacliffe woman.... See _there_!" He

pointed back along the promenade towards a spot where, not half an hour

ago, Speed had leaned over the railings to see the moonlight on the sea.

"Can you see the crowd standing about? That's where they dragged her in.

Only about ten minutes ago as I was passin'. Very high tide, you know,

washes all sorts of things up.... I didn't stay long--bit too gruesome

for me."

"Yes," agreed Speed. "And for me too.... By the way d'you happen to know

when this picture house shuts up?"

"About half-past ten, mostly."

"Thanks."

"Well--I'll be gettin' along.... Much obliged for the light....

Good-night...."

"Good-night," said Speed.

A few minutes later the crowd began to tumble out of the kinema. He

stood in the darkness against a blank wall, where he could see without

being seen. He wondered whether he had not better take Helen home

through the town instead of along the promenade. It was a longer way, of

course, but it would avoid the unpleasant affair that the stranger had

mentioned to him. He neither wished to see himself nor wished Helen to

see anything of the sort.

Curious that she was so late? The kinema must be almost empty now; the

stream of people had stopped. He saw the manager going to the box-office

to lock up. "Have they all come out?" he asked, emerging into the rays

of the electric lights. "Yes, everybody," answered the other. He even

glanced at Speed suspiciously, as if he wondered why he should be

waiting for somebody who obviously hadn't been to the kinema at all.

Well.... Speed stood in a sheltered alcove and lit a cigarette. He had

better get back to the Beach Hotel, anyway. Perhaps Helen hadn't gone to

the picture-show after all. Or, perhaps, she had come out before the end

and they had missed each other. Perhaps anything.... Anything! ...

Then suddenly the awful thought occurred to him. At first it was

fantastic; he walked along, sampling it in a horrified fashion, yet

refusing to be in the least perturbed by it. Then it gained ground upon

him, made him hasten his steps, throw away his cigarette, and finally

run madly along the echoing promenade to the curious little silent crowd

that had gathered there, about half-way to the pier entrance. He

scampered along the smooth asphalt just like a boisterous youngster, yet

in his eyes was wild brain-maddening fear.

V

Ten minutes later he knew. They pointed to a gap in the railings close

by, made some while before by a lorry that had run out of control along

the Marine Parade. The Urban District Council ought to have repaired the

railings immediately after the accident, and he (somebody in the crowd)

would not be surprised if the coroner censured the Council pretty

severely at the inquest. The gap was a positive death-trap for anybody

walking along at night and not looking carefully ahead. And _he_

(somebody else in the crowd) suggested the possibility of making the

Seacliffe Urban District Council pay heavy damages.... Of course, it was

an accident.... There was a bad bruise on the head: that was where she

must have struck the stones as she fell.... And in one of the pockets

was a torn kinema ticket; clearly she had been on her way home from the

Beach kinema.... Once again, it was the Council's fault for not promptly

repairing the dangerous gap in the railings.

They led him back to the Beach Hotel and gave him brandy. He kept

saying: "Now please go--I'm quite all right.... There's really nothing

that anybody can do for me.... Please go now...."

When at last he was alone in the cheerless hotel bedroom he sat down on

the side of the bed and cried. Not for sorrow or pity or terror, but

merely to relieve some fearful strain of emotion that was in him. Helen

dead! He could hardly force himself to believe it, but when he did he

felt sorry, achingly sorry, because there had been so many bonds between

them, so many bonds that only death could have snapped. He saw her now,

poor little woman, as he had never seen her before; the love in her

still living, and all that had made them unhappy together vanished away.

He loved her, those minutes in the empty, cheerless bedroom, more calmly

than he had ever loved her when she had been near to him. And--strange

miracle!--she had given him peace at last. Pity for her no longer

overwhelmed him with its sickly torture; he was calm, calm with sorrow,

but calm.

VI

Then, slowly, grimly, as to some fixed and inevitable thing, his torture

returned. He tried to persuade himself that the worst was over, that

tragedy had spent its terrible utmost; but even the sad calm of

desperation was nowhere to be found. He paced up and down the bedroom

long and wearisomely; shortly after midnight the solitary gas-jet

faltered and flickered and finally abandoned itself with a forlorn pop.

"_Curse_ the place!" he muttered, acutely nervous in the sudden gloom;

then for some moments he meditated a sarcastic protest to the

hotel-proprietress in the morning. "I am aware," he would begin, tartly,

"that the attractions of Seacliffe in the evenings are not such as would

often tempt the visitor to keep up until the small hours; but don't you

think that is an argument _against_ rather than _for_ turning off the

gas-supply at midnight?" Rather ponderous, though; probably the woman

wouldn't know what he meant. He might write a letter to the _Seacliffe

Gazette_ about it, anyway. "Oh, _damn_ them!" he exclaimed, with sudden

fervour, as he searched for the candle on the dressing-table.

Unfortunately he possessed no matches, and the candlestick, when at last

his groping had discovered it, contained none, either. It was so

infernally dark and silent; everybody in the place was in bed except

himself. He pictured the maids, sleeping cosily in the top attics, or

perhaps chattering together in whispers about clothes or their

love-affairs or Seacliffe gossip or--why, of course!--about _him_. They

would surely be talking about him. Such a tit-bit of gossip! Everyone in

Seacliffe would be full of the tragedy of the young fellow whose wife,

less than a year married, had fallen accidentally into the sea off the

promenade! He, not she, would be the figure of high tragedy in their

minds, and on the morrow they would all stare at him morbidly,

curiously.... Good God in Heaven! Could he endure it? ... Lightly the

moonlight filtered through the Venetian blinds on to the garish linoleum

pattern; and when the blinds were stirred by the breeze the light

skipped along the floor like moving swords; he could not endure that,

anyway. He went to the windows and drew up the blinds, one after the

other. They would hear that, he reflected, if they were awake; they

would know he was not asleep.

Then he remembered her as he had seen her less than a twelvemonth

before; standing knee-deep in the grasses by the river-bank at

Parminters. Everywhere that he had loved her was so clear now in his

mind, and everywhere else was so unreal and dim. He heard the tinkle of

the Head's piano and saw her puzzling intently over some easy Chopin

mazurka, her golden hair flame-like in the sunlight of the afternoon. He

saw the paths and fields of Millstead, all radiant where she and he had

been, and the moonlight lapping the pavilion steps, where, first of all,

he had touched her lips with his. And then--only with an effort could he

picture this--he saw the grim room downstairs, where she lay all wet and

bedraggled, those cheeks that he had kissed ice-cold and salt with the

sea. The moon, emerging fully from behind a mist, plunged him suddenly

in white light; at that moment it seemed to him that he was living in

some ugly nightmare, and that shortly he would wake from it and find all

the tragedy untrue. Helen was alive and well: he could only have

imagined her dead. And downstairs, in that sitting-room--it had been no

more than a dream, fearful and--thank God--false. Helen was away,

somewhere, perfectly well and happy--_somewhere_. And downstairs, in

that sitting-room ... Anyhow, he would go down and see, to convince

himself. He unlocked the bedroom door and tiptoed out on to the landing.

He saw the moon's rays caught phosphorescently on a fish in a glass

case. Down the two flights of stairs he descended with caution, and

then, at the foot, strove to recollect which was the room. He saw two

doors, with something written on them. One was the bar-parlour, he

thought, where the worthies of Seacliffe congregated nightly. He turned

the handle and saw the glistening brass of the beer-engines. Then the

other door, might be? He tried the handle, but the door was locked.

Somehow this infuriated him. "They lock the doors and turn off the gas!"

he cried, vehemently, uniting his complaints. Then suddenly he caught

sight of another door in the wall opposite, a door on which there was no

writing at all. He had an instant conviction that this must be _the_

door. He strode to it, menacingly, took hold of its handle in a firm

grasp, and pushed. Locked again! This time he could not endure the fury

that raged within him. "Good God!" he cried, shouting at the top of his

voice, "I'll burst every door in the place in!" He beat on the panels

with his fists, shouting and screaming the whole while....

Ten minutes later the hotel-porter and the bar man, clad in trousers and

shirt only, were holding his arms on either side, and the proprietress,

swathed in a pink dressing-gown, was standing a little way off, staring

at him curiously. And he was complaining to her about the turning off of

the gas at midnight. "One really has a right to expect something more

generous from the best hotel in Seacliffe," he was saying, with an

argumentative mildness that surprised himself. "It is not as though this

were a sixpenny doss-house. It is an A.A. listed hotel, and I consider

it absolutely scandalous that ..."

VII

Strangely, when he was back again and alone in his own bedroom, he felt

different. His gas-jet was burning again, evidently as a result of his

protest; the victory gave him a curious, childish pleasure. Nor did his

burdens weigh so heavily on him; indeed, he felt even peaceful enough to

try to sleep. He undressed and got into bed.

And then, slowly, secretly, dreadfully, he discovered that he was

thinking about Clare! It frightened him--this way she crept into his

thoughts as pain comes after the numbness of a blow. He knew he ought

not to think of her. He ought to put her out of his mind, at any rate,

for the present. Helen dead this little while, and already Clare in his

thoughts! The realisation appalled him, terrified him by affording him a

glimpse into the depths of his own dark soul. And yet--_he could not

help it_. Was he to be blamed for the thoughts that he could not drive

out of his mind? He prayed urgently and passionately for sleep, that he

might rid himself of the lurking, lurking image of her. But even in

sleep he feared he might dream of her.

Oh, Clare, Clare, would she ever come to him now, now that he was alone

and Helen was dead? God, the awfulness of the question! Yet he could not

put it away from him; he could but deceive himself, might be, into

thinking he was not asking it. He wanted Clare. Not more than ever--only

as much as he had always wanted her.

He wondered solemnly if the stuff in him were rotten; if he were proven

vile and debased because he wanted her; if he were cancelling his soul

by thinking of her so soon. And yet--God help him; even if all that were

so, _he could not help it_. If he were to be damned eternally for

thinking about Clare, then let him be damned eternally. Actions he might

control, but never the strains and cravings of his own mind. If he were

wrong, therefore, let him be wrong.

He wondered whether, when he fell asleep, he would dream about Helen or

about Clare. And yet, when at last his very tiredness made him close his

eyes, he dreamed of neither of them, but slept in perfect calm, as a

child that has been forgiven.

In the morning they brought his breakfast up to him in bed, and with it

a letter and a telegram. The chambermaid asked him dubiously if he were

feeling better and he replied: "Oh yes, much better, thanks." Only

vaguely could he remember what had taken place during the night.

When the girl had gone and he had glanced at the handwriting on the

envelope, he had a sudden paralysing shock, for it was Helen's!

The postmark was: "Seacliffe, 10.10 p.m."

He tore open the envelope with slow and awful dread, and took out a

single sheet of Beach Hotel notepaper. Scribbled on it in pencil was

just:

"DEAR KENNETH" ("Dear" underlined),--Good-bye, darling. I can't bear you

not to be happy. Forget me and don't worry. They will think it has been

an accident, and you mustn't tell them anything else. Leave Millstead

and take Clare away. Be happy with her.--Yours, HELEN."--

"P.S.--There's one thing I'm sorry for. On the last night before we left

Millstead I said something about Clare and Pritchard. Darling, it was a

lie--I made it up because I couldn't bear you to love Clare so much. I

don't mind now. Forgive me."

A moment later he was opening the telegram and reading: "Shall arrive

Seacliffe Station one fifteen meet me Clare."

It had been despatched from Millstead at nine-five that morning,

evidently as soon as the post office opened.

He ate no breakfast. It was a quarter past eleven and the sun was

streaming in through the window--the first spring day of the year. He

re-read the letter.

Strange that until then the thought that the catastrophe could have been

anything at all but accidental had never even remotely occurred to him!

Now it came as a terrible revelation, hardly to be believed, even with

proof; a revelation of that utmost misery that had driven her to the

sea. He had known that she was not happy, but he had never guessed that

she might be miserable to death.

And what escape was there now from his own overwhelming guilt? She had

killed herself because he had not made her happy. Or else because she

had not been able to make him happy. Whichever it was, he was fearfully

to blame. She had killed herself to make room for that other woman who

had taken all the joy out of her life.

And at one-fifteen that other woman would arrive in Seacliffe.

In the darkest depths of his remorse he vowed that he would not meet

her, see her, or hold any communication with her ever again, so long as

his life lasted. He would hate her eternally, for Helen's sake. He would

dedicate his life to the annihilation of her in his mind. Why was she

coming? Did she know? How _could_ she know? He raved at her mentally,

trying to involve her in some share of his own deep treachery, for even

the companionship of guilt was at least companionship. The two of

them--Clare and himself--had murdered Helen. The two of them--together.

_Together_. There was black magic in the intimacy that that word

implied--magic in the guilty secret that was between them, in the

passionate iniquity that was alluring even in its baseness!

He dressed hurriedly, and with his mind in a ferment, forgot his

breakfast till it was cold and then found it too unpalatable to eat. As

he descended the stairs and came into the hotel lobby he remarked to the

proprietress: "Oh, by the way, I must apologise for making a row last

night. Fact is, my nerves, you know.... Rather upset...."

"Quite all right, Mr. Speed. I'm sure we all understand and sympathise

with you. If there's any way we can help you, you know.... Shall you be

in to lunch?"

"Lunch? Oh yes--er--I mean, no. No, I don't think I shall--not to-day.

You see there are--er--arrangements to make--er--arrangements, you

know ..."

He smiled, and with carefully simulated nonchalance, commenced to light

a cigarette! When he got outside the hotel he decided that it was

absolutely the wrong thing to have done. He flung the cigarette into the

gutter. What was the matter with him? Something,--something that made

him, out of very fear, do ridiculous and inappropriate things. The same

instinct, no doubt, that always made him talk loudly when he was

nervous. And then he remembered that April morning of the year before,

when he had first of all entered the Headmaster's study at Millstead;

for then, through nervousness, he had spoken loudly, almost

aggressively, to disguise his embarrassment. What a curious creature he

was, and how curious people must think him.

He strolled round the town, bought a morning paper at the news agent's,

and pretended to be interested in the contents. Over him like a sultry

shadow lay the disagreeable paraphernalia of the immediate future:

doctors, coroner, inquest, lawyers, interviews with Doctor and Mrs.

Ervine, and so on. It had all to be gone through, but for the present he

would try to forget it. The turmoil of his own mind, that battle which

was being waged within his inmost self, that strife which no coroner

would guess, those secrets which no inquest would or could elicit; these

were the things of greater import. In the High Street, leading up from

the Pierhead, he saw half a dozen stalwart navvies swinging

sledge-hammers into the concrete road-bed. He stopped, ostensibly to

wait for a tram, but really to watch them. He envied them, passionately;

envied their strength and animal simplicity; envied above all their lack

of education and ignorance of themselves, their happy blindness along

the path of life. He wished he could forget such things as Art and

Culture and Education, and could become as they, or as he imagined them

to be. Their lives were brimful of _real_ things, things to be held and

touched--hammers and levers and slabs of concrete. With all their crude

joy and all their pain, simple and physical, their souls grew strong and

stark. He envied them with a passion that made him desist at last from

the sight of them, because it hurt.

The town-hall clock began the hour of noon, and that reminded him of

Clare, and of the overwhelming fact that she was at that moment in the

train hastening to Seacliffe. Was he thinking of her again? He went into

a café and ordered in desperation a pot of China tea and some bread and

butter, as if the mere routine of a meal would rid his mind of her. For

desire was with him still, nor could he stave it off. Nothing that he

could ever discover, however ugly or terrible, could stop the craving of

him for Clare. The things that they had begun together, he and she, had

no ending in this world. And suddenly all sense of free-will left him,

and he felt himself propelled at a mighty rate towards her, wherever she

might be; fate, surely, guiding him to her, but this time, a fate that

was urging him from within, not pressing him from without. And he knew,

secretly, whatever indignant protests he might make to himself about it,

that when the 1:15 train entered Seacliffe station he would be waiting

there on the platform for her. The thing was inevitable, like death.

But inevitability did not spare him torment. And at last his remorse

insisted upon a compromise. He would meet Clare, he decided, but when he

had met her, he would proceed to torture her, subtly, shrewdly--seeking

vengeance for the tragedy that she had brought to his life, and the

spell that she had cast upon his soul. He would be the Grand Inquisitor.

He was very white and haggard when the time came. He had reached the

station as early as one o'clock, and for a quarter of an hour had

lounged about the deserted platforms. Meanwhile the sun shone

gloriously, and the train as it ran into the station caught the sunlight

on its windows. The sight of the long line of coaches, curving into the

station like a flaming sword into its scabbard, gave him a mighty

heart-rending thrill. Yes, yes--he would torture her.... His eyes

glinted with diabolical exhilaration, and a touch of hectic colour crept

into his wan cheeks. He watched her alight from a third-class

compartment near the rear of the train. Then he lost her momentarily

amidst the emptying crowd. He walked briskly against the stream of the

throng, with a heart that beat fast with unutterable expectations.

But how he loved her as he saw her coming towards him!--though he tried

with all his might to kindle hate in his heart. She smiled and held out

her tiny hand. He took it with a limpness that was to begin his torture

of her. She was to notice that limpness.

"How is Helen?" was her first remark.

Amidst the bustle of the luggage round the guard's van he replied

quietly: "Helen? Oh, she's all right. I didn't tell her you were

coming."

"You were wise," she answered.

A faint thrill of anticipation crept over him; this diabolical game was

interesting, fascinating, in its way; and would lead her very securely

into a number of traps. And why, he thought, did she think it was wise

of him not to have told Helen?

In the station-yard she suddenly stopped to consult a time-table

hoarding.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm looking for the next train back to Millstead."

"Not the _next_, surely?"

"Why not? What do you think I've come for?"

"I don't know in the least. What _have_ you come for?"

She looked at him appealingly. He saw, with keen and instant relish,

that she had already noticed something of hostility in his attitude

towards her. The torture had begun. For the first time, she was subject

to his power and not he to hers.

"I've come for a few minutes' conversation," she answered, quietly. "And

the next train back is at 3:18."

"You mean to travel by that?"

"Yes."

"Then we needn't stay in the station till then, need we? Let's walk

somewhere. We've two whole hours--time enough to get right out of the

town and back again. I hate conversations in railway-stations."

But his chief reason was a desire to secure the right scenic background

for his torture of her.

"All right," she answered, and looked at him again appealingly. The

tears almost welled into his own eyes because of the deep sadness that

was in hers. How quick she was to feel his harshness!--he thought. How

marvellously sensitive was that little soul of hers to the subtlest

gradations of his own mood! What fiendish torture he could put her to,

by no more, might be, than the merest upraising of an eyebrow, the

faintest change of the voice, the slightest tightening of the lips! She

was of mercury, like himself; responsive to every touch of the emotional

atmosphere. And was not that the reason why she understood him with such

wonderful instinctive intimacy,--was not that the reason why the two of

them, out of the whole world, would have sought each other like twin

magnets?

He led her, in silence, through the litter of mean streets near the

station, and thence, beyond the edge of the town, towards the meadows

that sloped to the sea. So far it had been a perfect day, but now the

sun was half-quenching itself in a fringe of mist that lay along the

horizon; and with the change there came a sudden pink light that lit

both their faces and shone behind them on the tawdry newness of the

town, giving it for once a touch of pitiful loveliness. He took her into

a rolling meadow that tapered down into a coppice, and as they reached

the trees the last shaft of sunlight died from the sky. Then they

plunged into the grey depths, with all the freshly-budded leaves

brushing against their faces, and the very earth, so it seemed,

murmuring at their approach. Already there was the hint of rain in the

air.

"It's a long way to come for a few minutes' conversation," he began.

She answered, ignoring his remark: "I had a letter from Helen this

morning."

"_What_!" he exclaimed in sharp fear. He went suddenly white.

"A letter," she went on, broodingly. "Would you like to see it?"

He stared at her and replied: "I would rather hear from you what it was

about."

He saw her brown eyes looking up curiously into his, and he had the

instant feeling that she would cry if he persisted in his torture of

her. The silence of that walk from the station had unnerved her, had

made her frightened of him. That was what he had intended. And she did

not know yet--did not know what he knew. Poor girl--what a blow was in

waiting for her! But he must not let it fall for a little while.

She bit her lip and said: "Very well. It was about you. She was unhappy

about you. Dreadfully unhappy. She said she was going to leave you. She

also said--that she was going to leave you--to--to me."

Her voice trembled on that final word.

"Well?"

She recovered herself to continue with more energy: "And I've come here

to tell you this--that if she does leave you, I shan't have you. That's

all."

"You are making large assumptions."

"I know. And I don't mind your sarcasm, though I don't think any more of

you for using it.... I repeat what I said--if Helen leaves you or if you

leave Helen, I shall have nothing more to do with you."

"It is certainly kind of you to warn me in time."

"You've never given Helen a fair trial. I know you and she are

ill-matched. I know you oughtn't to have married her at all, but that

doesn't matter--you've done it, and you've got to be fair to her. And if

you think that because I've confessed that I love you I'm in your power

for you to be cruel to, you're mistaken!" Her voice rose passionately.

He stared at her, admiring the warm flush that came into her cheeks, and

all the time pitying her, loving her, agonisingly!

"Understand," she went on, "You've got to look after Helen--you've got

to take care of her--watch her--do you know what I mean?"

"No. What do you mean?"

"I mean you must try to make her happy. She's sick and miserable, and,

somehow, you must cure her. I came here to see you because I thought I

could persuade you to be kind to her. I thought if you loved me at all,

you might do it for my sake. Remember I love Helen as well as you. Do

you still think I'm hard-hearted and cold? If you knew what goes on

inside me, the racking, raging longing--the-- No, no--what's the good of

talking of that to you? You either understand or else you don't, and if

you don't, no words of mine will make you.... But I warn you again, you

must cure Helen of her unhappiness. Otherwise, she might try to cure

herself--in any way, drastic or not, that occurred to her. Do you know

now what I mean?"

"I'm afraid I don't, even yet."

"Well"--her voice became harder--"it's this, if you want plain speaking.

Watch her in case she kills herself. She's thinking of it."

He went ashen pale again and said quietly, after a long pause: "How do

you know that?"

"Her letter."

"She mentioned it?"

"Yes."

"And that's what you've come to warn me about?"

"Yes. And to persuade you, if I could----"

"Why did you decide that a personal visit was necessary?"

"I shouldn't have cared to tell you all this by letter. And besides, a

letter wouldn't have been nearly as quick, would it? You see I only

received her letter this morning. After all, the matter's urgent enough.

One can easily be too late."

He said, with eyes fixed steadily upon her: "Clare, you _are_ too late.

She drowned herself last night."

He expected she would cry or break down or do something dramatic that he

could at any rate endure. But instead of that, she stared vacantly into

the fast-deepening gloom of the coppice, stared infinitely, terribly,

without movement or sound. Horror tore nakedly through her eyes like

pain, though not a muscle of her face stirred from that fearful,

statuesque immobility. Moments passed. Far over the intervening spaces

came the faint chiming of the half-hour on the town-hall clock, and

fainter still, but ominous-sounding, the swirl of the waves on the

distant beach as the wind rose and freshened.

He could not bear that silence and that stillness of hers. It seemed as

though it would be eternal. And suddenly he saw that she was really

suffering, excruciatingly; and he could not bear it, because he loved

her. And then all his plans for torturing her, all his desires for

vengeance, all his schemes to make her suffer as he had suffered, all

the hate of her that he had manufactured in his heart--all was suddenly

gone, like worthless dust scoured by the gale. He perceived that they

were one in suffering as in guilt--fate's pathetic flotsam, aching to

cling together even in the last despairing drift.

He cried, agonisingly: "Clare! Clare! Oh, for God's sake, don't stare at

me like that, Clare! Oh, my darling, my dear darling, I'm

sorry--sorry--I'm dead with sorrow! Clare--Clare--be kind to me,

Clare--kinder than I have been to you or to Helen! ..."

VIII

She said, quietly: "I must get back in time for my train."

"No, no--not yet. Don't go. Don't leave me."

"I must."

"No--no----"

"You know I must. Don't you?"

He became calmer. It was as if she had willed him to become calmer, as

if some of the calmness of her was passing over to him. "Clare," he

said, eagerly, "Do you think I'm _bad_--am I--_rotten-souled_--because

of what's happened? Am I _damned_, do you think?"

She answered softly: "No. You're not. And you mustn't think you are.

Don't I love you? Would I love you if you were rotten? Would you love me

if _I_ was?"

He replied, gritting his teeth: "I would love you if you were filth

itself."

"Ah, would you?" she answered, with wistful pathos in her voice. "But

I'm not like that. I love you for what I know you are, for what I know

you could be!"

"Could be? Could have been! But Clare, Clare--who's to blame?"

"So many things happen dreadfully in this world and nobody knows who's

to blame."

"But not this, Clare. _We're_ to blame."

"We can be to blame without being--all that you said."

"Can we? Can we? There's another thing. If Helen had--had lived--she

would have had a baby in a few months' time...."

He paused, waiting for her reply, but none came. She went very pale. At

last she said, with strange unrestfulness: "What can I say? What _is_

there to say? ... Oh, don't let us go mad through thinking of it! We

_have_ been wrong, but have we been as wrong as that? Hasn't there been

fate in it? Fate can do the awfullest things.... My dear, dear man, we

should go mad if we took all that load of guilt on ourselves! It is too

heavy for repentance.... Oh, you're not _bad_, not inwardly. And neither

am I. We've been instruments--puppets----"

"It's good to think so. But is it true?"

"Before God, I think it is.... Think of it all right from the

beginning.... Right from the night you met us both at Millstead.... It's

easy to blame fate for what we've done, but isn't it just as easy to

blame ourselves for the workings of fate?"

She added, uneasily: "I _must_ go back. My train. Don't forget the

time."

"Can't you wait for the next?"

"_Dear_, you _know_ I mustn't. How could I stay? Fate's finished with us

now. We've free-will.... Didn't I tell you we weren't _bad_? All that's

why I can't stay."

They began to walk back to the railway-station. A mist-like rain was

beginning to fall, and everything was swathed in grey dampness. They

talked together like two age-long friends, partners in distress and

suffering; he told her, carefully and undramatically, the story of the

night before.

She said to him, from the carriage-window just before the 3:18 steamed

out: "I shan't see you again for ever such a long while. I wish--I wish

I could stay with you and help you. But I can't.... You know why I

can't, don't you?"

"Yes, I know why. We must be brave alone. We must learn, if we can, to

call ourselves good again."

"Yes.... Yes.... We must start life anew. No more mistakes. And you must

grow back again to what you used to be.... The next few months will be

terrible--maddening--for both of us. But _I_ can bear them. Do you think

_you_ can--without me? If I thought you couldn't"--her voice took on a

sudden wild passion--"if I thought you would break down under the

strain, if I thought the fight would crush and kill you, I would stay

with you from this moment, and never, never leave you alone! I would--I

would--if I thought there was no other way!"

He said, calmly and earnestly: "I can fight it, Clare. I shall not break

down. Trust me. And then--some day----"

She interrupted him hurriedly. "I am going abroad very soon. I don't

know for how long, but for a long while, certainly. And while I am away

I shall not write to you, and you must not write to me, either. Then,

when I come back ..."

He looked up into her eyes and smiled.

The guard was blowing his whistle.

"Be brave these next few months," she said again.

"I will," he answered. He added: "I shall go home."

"What? Home, Home to the millionaire soap-boiler?" (A touch of the old

half-mocking Clare.)

"Yes. It's my home. They've always been very good to me."

"Of course they have. I'm glad you've realised it."

Then the train began to move. "Good-bye!" she said, holding out her

hand.

"Good-bye!" he cried, taking it and clasping it quickly as he walked

along the platform with the train. "See you again," he added, almost in

a whisper.

She gave him such a smile, with tears streaming down her cheeks, as he

would never, never forget.

When he went out again into the station-yard the fine rain was falling

mercilessly. He felt miserable, sick with a new as well as an old

misery, but stirred by a hope that would never let him go.

Back then to the Beach Hotel, vowing and determining for the future,

facing in anticipation the ordeals of the dark days ahead, summoning up

courage and fortitude, bracing himself for terror and conflict and

desire.... And with it all hoping, hoping ... hoping everlastingly.

THE END