'Mind your own business,' says the other with growing excitement.

'That's what you'll make me do if you don't look out,' is the retort.
'Will you move on before I make you?'

'But, I say,' protests Rolleston, 'I'm not joking; I give you my word
I'm not. I do live here. Why, I've just come back from school, and I
can't get in.'

'Pretty school _you_ come from!' growls the policeman; ''andles on to
_your_ lesson books, if _I_ knows anything. 'Ere, out you go!'

Rolleston's fear increases. 'I won't! I won't!' he cries frantically,
and rushing back to the door beats upon it wildly. On the other side of
it are love and shelter, and it will not open to him. He is cold and
hungry and tired after his walk; why do they keep him out like this?

'Mother!' he calls hoarsely. 'Can't you hear me, mother? It's Wilfred;
let me in!'

The other takes him, not roughly, by the shoulder. 'Now you take my
advice,' he says. 'You ain't quite yourself; you're making a mistake. I
don't want to get you in trouble if you don't force me to it. Drop this
'ere tomfool game and go home quiet to wherever it is you _do_ live.'

'I tell you I live here, you fool!' shrieks Wilfred, in deadly terror
lest he should be forced away before the door is opened.

'And I tell you you don't do nothing of the sort,' says the policeman,
beginning to lose his temper. 'No one don't live 'ere, nor ain't done
not since I've bin on the beat. Use your eyes if you're not too far
gone.'

For the first time Rolleston seems to see things plainly as they are; he
glances round the square--that is just as it always is on foggy winter
evenings, with its central enclosure a shadowy black patch against a
reddish glimmer, beyond which the lighted windows of the houses make
yellow bars of varying length and tint.

But this house, his own--why, it is all shuttered and dark; some of the
window panes are broken; there is a pale grey patch in one that looks
like a dingy bill; the knocker has been unscrewed from the door, and on
its scraped panels someone has scribbled words and rough caricatures
that were surely not there when he left that morning.

Can anything--any frightful disaster--have come in that short time? No,
he will not think of it; he will not let himself be terrified, all for
nothing.

'Now, are you goin'?' says the policeman after a pause.

Rolleston puts his back against the door and clings to the sides. 'No!'
he shouts. 'I don't care what you say; I don't