to my going down."

"However do you get through it all?"

"Thanks to method. It's summed up in that. Without method, I should be a
lost man."

"You ought to slack off," she said. "I'm sure that Nelly doesn't like to
see you work so hard."

"She'd work hard too, but Nature and not her will shortens her great
powers. She grows into a mountain of flesh and her substance prevents
activity; but the mind is there unclouded. In my case the flesh doesn't
gain on me and work agrees with my system."

"You're a very wonderful man," declared Estelle; "but no doubt plenty of
people tell you that."

"Only by comparison," he explained. "The wonder is all summed up in the
one word 'method,' coupled with a good digestion and no strong drink.
I'd like to talk more on the subject, but I must be going."

"And tell them to put in the pony. We must be going, too."

On the way home Estelle tried to interest Abel in sport. She had been
very careful all day to keep Raymond off her lips, but now intentionally
she spoke of him. It was done with care and she only named him casually
in the course of general remarks. Thus she hoped that, in time, he would
allow her to mention his father without opposition.

"I think you ought to play some games with your old friends at
Bridetown these holidays," she said.

"I haven't any old friends there. I don't want friends. I never made
that fire you promised."

"You shall make it next time we come out; and everybody wants friends.
You can't get on without friends. And the good of games is that you make
friends. I'm very keen on golf now, though I never thought I should like
sport. Did you play any cricket at school?"

"Yes, but I don't care about it."

"How did you play? You ought to be rather a dab at it."

"I played very well and was in the second eleven. But I don't care about
it. It's all right at school, but there are better things to do in the
holidays."

"If you're a good cricketer, you might get some matches. Your father is
a very good cricketer, and would have played for the county if he'd been
able to practise enough. And Mister Roberts at the mill is a splendid
player."

His nervous face twitched and his instant passion ran into his whip
hand. He gave the astonished pony a lash and made it start across the
road, so that Estelle was nearly thrown from her seat.

"Don't! Don't!" she said. "What's the matter?"

But she knew.

He showed his teeth.

"I won't hear his name--I won