away. She wanted
to escape.

"But can't I do it?" she pleaded.

"If you hurry," he said brusquely. "But you could easily walk it, Clara;
it's only seven miles to the tram. I'll come with you."

"No; I want to catch the train."

"But why?"

"I do--I want to catch the train."

Suddenly his voice altered.

"Very well," he said, dry and hard. "Come along, then."

And he plunged ahead into the darkness. She ran after him, wanting to
cry. Now he was hard and cruel to her. She ran over the rough, dark
fields behind him, out of breath, ready to drop. But the double row of
lights at the station drew nearer. Suddenly:

"There she is!" he cried, breaking into a run.

There was a faint rattling noise. Away to the right the train, like
a luminous caterpillar, was threading across the night. The rattling
ceased.

"She's over the viaduct. You'll just do it."

Clara ran, quite out of breath, and fell at last into the train. The
whistle blew. He was gone. Gone!--and she was in a carriage full of
people. She felt the cruelty of it.

He turned round and plunged home. Before he knew where he was he was
in the kitchen at home. He was very pale. His eyes were dark and
dangerous-looking, as if he were drunk. His mother looked at him.

"Well, I must say your boots are in a nice state!" she said.

He looked at his feet. Then he took off his overcoat. His mother
wondered if he were drunk.

"She caught the train then?" she said.

"Yes."

"I hope HER feet weren't so filthy. Where on earth you dragged her I
don't know!"

He was silent and motionless for some time.

"Did you like her?" he asked grudgingly at last.

"Yes, I liked her. But you'll tire of her, my son; you know you will."

He did not answer. She noticed how he laboured in his breathing.

"Have you been running?" she asked.

"We had to run for the train."

"You'll go and knock yourself up. You'd better drink hot milk."

It was as good a stimulant as he could have, but he refused and went to
bed. There he lay face down on the counterpane, and shed tears of rage
and pain. There was a physical pain that made him bite his lips till
they bled, and the chaos inside him left him unable to think, almost to
feel.

"This is how she serves me, is it?" he said in his heart, over and over,
pressing his face in the quilt. And he hated her. Again he went over the
scene, and again he hated her.

The next day there was a new aloofness about him. Clara was very gentle