ree minutes in the drenching rain before the window,
and even at that crisis Cicely did not forget to hoist her dripping
umbrella over the head so eagerly thrust forward. Then Peter put a thin
wrist through a mackintoshed arm, and looking in each other's faces,
and eagerly talking, unconscious of the eyes that watched them, the wet
impatient people pushing past, the boy and girl walked slowly away.

The doctor touched the bell that would bring his next patient for
inspection, then took one more look through the window. The pair had
taken hands and were running now, running over the clean-washed, shiny
pavement. Cicely turned her face so that he saw it once again, and it
was a laughing face.

"It's something to be young," the doctor said to himself as he turned
away. "Young--and to have the thing you wish for! Yes, even if you're
never to know a day's health while you live, and have got to die a
lingering, painful death in a year or so."

He only saw Peter once after he obtained his heart's desire and the
proud position of a post as a junior clerk in Clomayne's office. It was
on a platform of Liverpool Street Suburban line. He was going down to
Enfield in his professional capacity, and while he waited for his
train, walking up and down, his attention was caught by a figure which
appeared in some way familiar to him standing at the book-stall. A
minute, and he had recognised it as that of the youth who had been so
bent on becoming Clomayne's clerk.

He was better dressed now, and wore a warmer over-coat (for the summer
was over, by now, and winter coming on again), and a more fashionably
shaped bowler. Cicely, in her waterproof still, although there was no
rain, and with her straight, heavy hair upon her shoulders, was by his
side.

The physician, having established in his own mind the identity of the
pair, resumed his pacing to and fro of the platform, and forgot them.
In a minute, a voice at his elbow spoke his name, and glancing down, he
saw, taking off his hat to him, and accosting him with a very eager
look on the duskily pale face, the youth whose name, even, he had
forgotten. A light of triumphant gladness was in the mild darkness of
the eyes.

"Excuse my speaking to you, sir," Peter said, "Cicely would have me
come. She thought you'd be pleased to hear our very good news."

"I'm always glad to hear anyone's good news," the big doctor said.
"Let's see--it's Mr----?"

"I'm the young man at Clomayne's," Pet