me into her eyes as she instinctively sought to defend herself by abuse.
But she did not say the words which were on the tip of her tongue.

"Oh, I was only going to see the show. It gives me the hump sitting every
night by myself."

He did not pretend to believe her.

"You mustn't. Good heavens, I've told you fifty times how dangerous it is.
You must stop this sort of thing at once."

"Oh, hold your jaw," she cried roughly. "How d'you suppose I'm going to
live?"

He took hold of her arm and without thinking what he was doing tried to
drag her away.

"For God's sake come along. Let me take you home. You don't know what
you're doing. It's criminal."

"What do I care? Let them take their chance. Men haven't been so good to
me that I need bother my head about them."

She pushed him away and walking up to the box-office put down her money.
Philip had threepence in his pocket. He could not follow. He turned away
and walked slowly down Oxford Street.

"I can't do anything more," he said to himself.

That was the end. He did not see her again.

CX

Christmas that year falling on Thursday, the shop was to close for four
days: Philip wrote to his uncle asking whether it would be convenient for
him to spend the holidays at the vicarage. He received an answer from Mrs.
Foster, saying that Mr. Carey was not well enough to write himself, but
wished to see his nephew and would be glad if he came down. She met Philip
at the door, and when she shook hands with him, said:

"You'll find him changed since you was here last, sir; but you'll pretend
you don't notice anything, won't you, sir? He's that nervous about
himself."

Philip nodded, and she led him into the dining-room.

"Here's Mr. Philip, sir."

The Vicar of Blackstable was a dying man. There was no mistaking that when
you looked at the hollow cheeks and the shrunken body. He sat huddled in
the arm-chair, with his head strangely thrown back, and a shawl over his
shoulders. He could not walk now without the help of sticks, and his hands
trembled so that he could only feed himself with difficulty.

"He can't last long now," thought Philip, as he looked at him.

"How d'you think I'm looking?" asked the Vicar. "D'you think I've changed
since you were here last?"

"I think you look stronger than you did last summer."

"It was the heat. That always upsets me."

Mr. Carey's history of the last few months consisted in the number of
weeks he had spent in hi