hat he managed by a sort
of miracle, performed almost in the air, to slam to the door of the
carriage. Only then did he find himself rolling head over heels like a
shot rabbit. He was bruised, shaken, pale as death, and out of breath
when he got up. But he was calm, and perfectly able to meet the excited
crowd of railway men who had gathered round him in a moment. He
explained, in gentle and convincing tones, that his wife had started at a
moment's notice for Brittany to her dying mother; that, of course, she
was greatly up-set, and he considerably concerned at her state; that he
was trying to cheer her up, and had absolutely failed to notice at first
that the train was moving out. To the general exclamation, "Why didn't
you go on to Southampton, then, sir?" he objected the inexperience of a
young sister-in-law left alone in the house with three small children,
and her alarm at his absence, the telegraph offices being closed. He had
acted on impulse. "But I don't think I'll ever try that again," he
concluded; smiled all round; distributed some small change, and marched
without a limp out of the station.

Outside, Comrade Ossipon, flush of safe banknotes as never before in his
life, refused the offer of a cab.

"I can walk," he said, with a little friendly laugh to the civil driver.

He could walk. He walked. He crossed the bridge. Later on the towers
of the Abbey saw in their massive immobility the yellow bush of his hair
passing under the lamps. The lights of Victoria saw him too, and Sloane
Square, and the railings of the park. And Comrade Ossipon once more
found himself on a bridge. The river, a sinister marvel of still shadows
and flowing gleams mingling below in a black silence, arrested his
attention. He stood looking over the parapet for a long time. The clock
tower boomed a brazen blast above his drooping head. He looked up at the
dial. . . . Half-past twelve of a wild night in the Channel.

And again Comrade Ossipon walked. His robust form was seen that night in
distant parts of the enormous town slumbering monstrously on a carpet of
mud under a veil of raw mist. It was seen crossing the streets without
life and sound, or diminishing in the interminable straight perspectives
of shadowy houses bordering empty roadways lined by strings of gas lamps.
He walked through Squares, Places, Ovals, Commons, through monotonous
streets with unknown names where the dust of humanity settles inert and
hop