enderness for him than she had hitherto known.
"We have nothing to get married on. People would only laugh at us."

"But you wish it, same as me, Carrie? If I was one of them rich young
chaps that can plank down the money for a half-year's rent and a
mahog'ny suite, like I do for a packet of cigs., you'd be ready to get
married, Carrie?"

It was the first time they had seriously talked of marriage, though
they had been "going together" ever since Caroline knew that a 'boy'
was as essential to her grown-up panoply as hairpins, and she felt
something indefinable at the back of her mind which was not pleasure;
and yet it was not fear---- She turned from her own emotions with a
sort of relief. "Goodness! There's the church clock striking a
quarter to eleven. We must have been three-quarters of an hour coming
from the prom. here. I know Miss Ethel goes to bed at ten, and she'll
have been sitting up for me."

"Never mind. You're only stopping to oblige. They ought to be jolly
thankful to you, whatever time you turn up," babbled Wilf--all
impatient excitement. "Carrie, just one more. I must----"

He clung to her, then let her go. She ran up the path towards the
house while he stood there, listening to her footsteps and yet
restraining himself from following her, as a matter of course. For the
idea of running after her and holding her in his arms by force, as he
wanted to do, simply never entered his mind. Despite that dark lane
and the evening hour, the chivalry of the ordinary decent Anglo-Saxon
man--which some races are unable to understand--stood like a sentinel
at the door of his desires.

Caroline entered the door of the Cottage in a state of hurry and
excitement; but the empty kitchen seemed to act on it like a sort of
emotional cold douche. The varnished walls, the neatly set chairs, the
clock ticking so loudly above the mantel-shelf, all seemed somehow
unnatural, with the unnaturalness of empty houses where steps go
echoing--echoing--though nobody is there.

She hastily put the kettle on the gas-ring, then prepared a glass for
Miss Ethel's hot water and two cups for Mrs. Bradford's cocoa and her
own. But as the water would not boil all at once she stood there
watching the little blue and yellowish flames of that unsatisfactory
Thorhaven gas splutter under the kettle. All sorts of thoughts went
scurrying about her mind as the clock measured the seconds--tick-tock!
tick-tock!--over her head.

Ho