y
the Christian spirit, would restore to her all the prizes of existence,
forgiving and forgetting, and becoming the godfather of her future.
Under a tree opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, where the moon-light
struck down clear and white, he took out once more the morocco case, and
let the beams draw colour from those stones. Yes, they were of the first
water! But, at the hard closing snap of the case, another cold shiver
ran through his nerves; and he walked on faster, clenching his gloved
hands in the pockets of his coat, almost hoping she would not be in. The
thought of how mysterious she was again beset him. Dining alone there
night after night--in an evening dress, too, as if she were making
believe to be in society! Playing the piano--to herself! Not even a dog
or cat, so far as he had seen. And that reminded him suddenly of the
mare he kept for station work at Mapledurham. If ever he went to the
stable, there she was quite alone, half asleep, and yet, on her home
journeys going more freely than on her way out, as if longing to be
back and lonely in her stable! 'I would treat her well,' he thought
incoherently. 'I would be very careful.' And all that capacity for
home life of which a mocking Fate seemed for ever to have deprived him
swelled suddenly in Soames, so that he dreamed dreams opposite South
Kensington Station. In the King's Road a man came slithering out of a
public house playing a concertina. Soames watched him for a moment dance
crazily on the pavement to his own drawling jagged sounds, then crossed
over to avoid contact with this piece of drunken foolery. A night in the
lock-up! What asses people were! But the man had noticed his movement
of avoidance, and streams of genial blasphemy followed him across the
street. 'I hope they'll run him in,' thought Soames viciously. 'To have
ruffians like that about, with women out alone!' A woman's figure in
front had induced this thought. Her walk seemed oddly familiar, and when
she turned the corner for which he was bound, his heart began to beat.
He hastened on to the corner to make certain. Yes! It was Irene; he
could not mistake her walk in that little drab street. She threaded two
more turnings, and from the last corner he saw her enter her block of
flats. To make sure of her now, he ran those few paces, hurried up the
stairs, and caught her standing at her door. He heard the latchkey in
the lock, and reached her side just as she turned round, startled, in
the