ake your place, Williams," she said.

He dragged his feet across the room, wiping his face on his
sleeve. As he sat down, he glanced at her furtively, his eyes
still redder. Now he looked like some beaten rat.

At last the children were gone. Mr. Harby trod by heavily,
without looking her way, or speaking. Mr. Brunt hesitated as she
was locking her cupboard.

"If you settle Clarke and Letts in the same way, Miss
Brangwen, you'll be all right," he said, his blue eyes glancing
down in a strange fellowship, his long nose pointing at her.

"Shall I?" she laughed nervously. She did not want anybody to
talk to her.

As she went along the street, clattering on the granite
pavement, she was aware of boys dodging behind her. Something
struck her hand that was carrying her bag, bruising her. As it
rolled away she saw that it was a potato. Her hand was hurt, but
she gave no sign. Soon she would take the tram.

She was afraid, and strange. It was to her quite strange and
ugly, like some dream where she was degraded. She would have
died rather than admit it to anybody. She could not look at her
swollen hand. Something had broken in her; she had passed a
crisis. Williams was beaten, but at a cost.

Feeling too much upset to go home, she rode a little farther
into the town, and got down from the tram at a small tea-shop.
There, in the dark little place behind the shop, she drank her
tea and ate bread-and-butter. She did not taste anything. The
taking of tea was just a mechanical action, to cover over her
existence. There she sat in the dark, obscure little place,
without knowing. Only unconsciously she nursed the back of her
hand, which was bruised.

When finally she took her way home, it was sunset red across
the west. She did not know why she was going home. There was
nothing for her there. She had, true, only to pretend to be
normal. There was nobody she could speak to, nowhere to go for
escape. But she must keep on, under this red sunset, alone,
knowing the horror in humanity, that would destroy her, and with
which she was at war. Yet it had to be so.

In the morning again she must go to school. She got up and
went without murmuring even to herself. She was in the hands of
some bigger, stronger, coarser will.

School was fairly quiet. But she could feel the class
watching her, ready to spring on her. Her instinct was aware of
the class instinct to catch her if she were weak. But she kept
cold and was guarded.

Wi