on the deck to the unanimous
shout: "No!"

Folkestone had been trying, with its parade of cheerfulness, with
kindly women on the platform serving tea and buns. In the railway
coach to London, where the officers sat, a talking machine played
steadily, and there were masses of flowers, violets and lilies of
the valley. At Charing Cross was a great mass of people, and as they
slowly disembarked he saw that many were crying. He was rather
surprised. He had known London as a cold and unemotional place. It
had treated him as an alien, had snubbed and ignored him.

He had been prepared to ask nothing of London, and it lay at his
feet in tears.

Then he saw Edith.

Perhaps, when in the fullness of years the boy goes over to the
life he so firmly believes awaits him, the one thing he will carry
with him through the open door will be the look in her eyes when she
saw him. Too precious a thing to lose, surely, even then. Such
things make heaven.

"What did I tell you?" cried the girl who had given Edith her
flowers. "She has found him. See, he has lost his arm. Look
out--catch him!"

But he did not faint. He went even whiter, and looking at Edith he
touched his empty sleeve.

"As if that would make any difference to her!" said the girl, who
was in black. "Look at her face! She's got him."

Neither Edith nor the boy could speak. He was afraid of unmanly
tears. His dignity was very dear to him. And the tragedy of his
empty sleeve had her by the throat. So they went out together and
the crowd opened to let them by.

* * * * *

At nine o'clock that night Lethway stormed through the stage
entrance of the theatre and knocked viciously at the door of Mabel's
dressing room. Receiving no attention, he opened the door and went
in.

The room was full of flowers, and Mabel, ready to go on, was having
her pink toes rouged for her barefoot dance.

"You've got a nerve!" she said coolly.

"Where's Edith?"

"I don't know and I don't care. She ran away, when I was stinting
myself to keep her. I'm done. Now you go out and close that door,
and when you want to enter a lady's dressing room, knock."

He looked at her with blazing hatred.

"Right-o!" was all he said. And he turned and left her to her
flowers.

At exactly the same time Edith was entering the elevator of a small,
very respectable hotel in Kensington. The boy, smiling, watched her
in.

He did not kiss her, greatly to the disappoint