tare of the old man's eyes, were more than Hilary
could bear. He turned away.

"You ask me something that I cannot answer.

"Why?"

"It is a private matter."

With the blood still beating in his temples, his lips still quivering,
and the feeling of the girl's clasp round his knees, he almost hated this
old man who stood there putting such blind questions.

Then suddenly in Mr. Stone's eyes he saw a startling change, as in the
face of a man who regains consciousness after days of vacancy. His whole
countenance had become alive with a sort of jealous understanding. The
warmth which the little model brought to his old spirit had licked up the
fog of his Idea, and made him see what was going on before his eyes.

At that look Hilary braced himself against the wall.

A flush spread slowly over Mr. Stone's face. He spoke with rare
hesitation. In this sudden coming back to the world of men and things he
seemed astray.

"I am not going," he stammered, "to ask you any more. I could not pry
into a private matter. That would not be---" His voice failed; he
looked down.

Hilary bowed, touched to the quick by the return to life of this old man,
so long lost to facts, and by the delicacy in that old face.

"I will not intrude further on your trouble," said Mr. Stone, "whatever
it may be. I am sorry that you are unhappy, too."

Very slowly, and without again looking up at his son-in-law, he went out.

Hilary remained standing where he had been left against the wall.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE HOME-COMING OF HUGHS

Hilary had evidently been right in thinking the little model was not
speaking the truth when she said she had seen Hughs, for it was not until
early on the following morning that three persons traversed the long
winding road leading from Wormwood Scrubs to Kensington. They preserved
silence, not because there was nothing in their hearts to be expressed,
but because there was too much; and they walked in the giraffe-like
formation peculiar to the lower classes--Hughs in front; Mrs. Hughs to
the left, a foot or two behind; and a yard behind her, to the left again,
her son Stanley. They made no sign of noticing anyone in the road
besides themselves, and no one in the road gave sign of noticing that
they were there; but in their three minds, so differently fashioned, a
verb was dumbly, and with varying emotion, being conjugated:

"I've been in prison." "You've been in prison. He's been in prison."