d he expatiated for a time on the behaviour of this
person and that. One name he avoided for a space.

"And Millie?" said I at last.

"I didn't seem to care a bit for seeing Millie," he said.

"I expect she seemed changed?"

"Every one was changed. Changed for good. Every one seemed big, you
know, and coarse. And their voices seemed loud. Why, the sun, when it
rose in the morning, fair hit me in the eye!"

"And Millie?"

"I didn't want to see Millie."

"And when you did?"

"I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?'
she said, and I saw there was a row. _I_ didn't care if there was. I
seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking to me. She
was just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen in 'er ever,
or what there could 'ave been. Sometimes when she wasn't about, I did
get back a little, but never when she was there. Then it was always the
other came up and blotted her out.... Anyow, it didn't break her heart."

"Married?" I asked.

"Married 'er cousin," said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the
pattern of the tablecloth for a space.

When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean
vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy
Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting out
the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to repeat. I
think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole affair, to hear
that neat little grocer man after his story was done, with a glass of
whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers, witnessing, with
sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted anguish, of
the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently came upon him. "I
couldn't eat," he said, "I couldn't sleep. I made mistakes in orders
and got mixed with change. There she was day and night, drawing me and
drawing me. Oh, I wanted her. Lord! how I wanted her! I was up there,
most evenings I was up there on the Knoll, often even when it rained. I
used to walk over the Knoll and round it and round it, calling for them
to let me in. Shouting. Near blubbering I was at times. Daft I was
and miserable. I kept on saying it was all a mistake. And every Sunday
afternoon I went up there, wet and fine, though I knew as well as you do
it wasn't no good by day. And I've tried to go to sleep there."

He stopped sharply and decided to drink some whisky.

"I've tried to go to sleep t