ter. She was like a child. A spoiled child
with little ways. Winny had tried her best to take care of her, but she
couldn't be taking care of her all the time. She was glad she had gone
home, though she was so fond of her. But she was afraid she wouldn't
stay long.

"You think," said Ransome, "she'll come back?"

"I shouldn't be surprised if she turned up any day."

"And you'll take care of her?"

"Yes, I shall take care of her."

He looked at her, and for a moment it revived, it stirred in his heart,
that odd mingled sense of absurdity and tenderness.

* * * * *

She would come back, he told himself; she would come back. Meanwhile he
could call his soul his own, to say nothing of his body. Under all the
shock of it Ransome felt a certain relief in realizing that Violet Usher
had gone. It was as if some danger, half discerned, had been hanging
over him and had gone with her.

But winter and spring passed, and she did not come back. They passed
monotonously, like all the springs and winters he had known. He had got
his rise at Michaelmas; but he was free from the obsession of the
matrimonial idea and all that he now looked forward to was an indefinite
extension of the Athletic Life.

In June of nineteen-four he entered for the Wandsworth Athletic Sports.
He hoped to win the silver cup for the Hurdle Race, against Fred Booty,
as he had done last year.

Wandsworth was sure of its J. R. F. Ransome. Putney and Wimbledon,
competing, were not sending any better men than they had sent last year.
And this year, as Booty owned, Ransome was "a fair masterpiece," a young
miracle of fitness. His admirable form, hitherto equal to young Booty's,
was improved by strenuous training, and at his worst he had what Booty
hadn't, a fire and a spirit, a power, utterly incalculable, of sudden
uprush and outburst, like the loosening of a secret energy. When he
flagged it would rise in him and sting him to the spurt. But, while it
made him the darling of the crowd, it was apt to upset the betting of
experts at the last minute.

There is a level field not far from Wandsworth which is let for football
matches and athletic sports. Railings and broken hedges and a few elm
trees belt the field. All round the space marked out for the contest, a
ring of ropes held back the straining crowd; and all round, within the
ring, went the course for the mile-flat race. Down one side of the
field, facing the Grand Sta