out anyhow.

"I've been beastly uncomfortable," he said.

"Yes?" said Dick. "Any particular way?"

Jack shifted one leg over the other. He had not approached one element
in the situation at all, as yet, with Dick, but it had been simmering in
him for weeks, and had been brought to a point by Frank's letter
received this morning. And now the curious intimacy into which he had
been brought with Dick began to warm it out of him.

"You'll think me an ass, too, I expect," he said. "And I rather think
it's true. But I can't help it."

Dick smiled at him encouragingly. (Certainly, thought Jack, this man was
nicer than he had thought him.)

"Well, it's this--" he said suddenly. "But it's frightfully hard to put
into words. You know what I told you about Frank's coming to me at
Barham?"

"Yes."

"Well, there was something he said then that made me uncomfortable. And
it's made me more and more uncomfortable ever since ..." (He paused
again.) "Well, it's this. He said that he felt there was something going
on that he couldn't understand--some sort of Plan, he said--in which he
had to take part--a sort of scheme to be worked out, you know. I suppose
he meant God," he explained feebly.

Dick looked at him questioningly.

"Oh! I can't put it into words," said Jack desperately. "Nor did he,
exactly. But that was the kind of idea. A sort of Fate. He said he was
quite certain of it.... And there were lots of little things that fitted
in. He changed his clothes in the old vestry, you know--in the old
church. It seemed like a sort of sacrifice, you know. And then I had a
beastly dream that night. And then there was something my mother said....
And now there's his letter: the one I showed you at dinner--about
something that might happen to him.... Oh! I'm a first-class ass, aren't
I?"

There was a considerable silence. He glanced up in an ashamed sort of
way, at the other, and saw him standing quite upright and still, again
with his back to the fire, looking out across the room. From outside
came the hum of the thoroughfare--the rolling of wheels, the jingle of
bells, the cries of human beings. He waited in a kind of shame for
Dick's next words. He had not put all these feelings into coherent form
before, even to himself, and they sounded now even more fantastic than
he had thought them. He waited, then, for the verdict of this quiet man,
whom up to now he had deemed something of a fool, who cared about
nothing but billiard