nny'd given him the race. He explained to them in his hoarsest tones
that it stood to reason he could never have got in with the pace Ranny'd
got on him. It wasn't fair, he said. It was a fluke, a blanky fluke.

And round him Tyser and Buist and Wauchope clamored in the tent and
agreed with him, declaring that it wasn't fair. Of course it was a
fluke, a blanky fluke.

And Ranny, though he told Booty to dry up and stow it; though he put it
to Tyser and Buist and Wauchope that it wasn't any blanky fluke, that it
couldn't well be fairer, seeing how he'd funked it at the finish, Ranny
knew in his heart that somewhere there was something queer about it. He
couldn't think why on earth he'd funked it.

* * * * *

That night, in her little room in St. Ann's Terrace, Winny lay awake and
cried.

Violet Usher had come back.

CHAPTER X

It was from the next day, Sunday, that he dated it--what happened. It
followed as a sequel to the events of Sunday.

For Ransome was convinced that it never could have happened if he had
not gone with Wauchope on Sunday evening to that Service for Men. He
used to say that if you traced it back far enough, poor old Wauchope was
at the bottom of it. It was poor old Wauchope who had "rushed" him for
the Service (in calling him poor old Wauchope, he recognized him as the
unknowing and unwilling thing of Destiny). Thus it had its root and rise
in the extraordinary state of Wauchope's soul.

Wauchope had realized that he _had_ a soul, and was beginning to take an
interest in it. That, of course, was not the way he put it when he
approached Ransome on Saturday night after the Sports Dinner at the
"Golden Eagle." All he said was that he was "in for it." Been let in by
a curate johnnie who'd rushed him for a Service for Men to-morrow night
at Clapham. Wauchope wasn't going because he wanted to, but because the
curate was such a decent chap he didn't like to disappoint him. He ran a
Young Men's Club in St. Matthias's, Clapham, and Wauchope helped him by
looking in now and then for a knock-up with the gloves. The curate was
handy with the gloves himself. A bit cumbrous, but fancied himself as a
featherweight, in a skipping, dodging, dance-all-round-you,
land-you-one-presently sort of style. Well, the curate johnnie had been
handing round printed invitations for this Service. "All Welcome," don't
you know? "Come, and bring a Friend." Wauchope had promised, Honor