looking for him! A porter was slamming the doors to already.

The Warden strode along and came face to face with her. Under the large
brimmed hat and through the veil, he could see that she had turned ashy
pale. They stared for a moment at each other desperately, and he could
see that she was trembling. The porter laid his hand on the door. "Are
you getting in, m'm?"

Only a week ago the Warden had committed the one rash and foolish action
of his life. He had done it in ignorance of his own personal needs and
with, perhaps, the unconscious cynicism of a man who has lived for forty
years unable to find his true mate. But since then his mind had been lit
up with the flash of a sudden poignant experience. He knew now what he
wanted; what he must have, or fail. He knew that there was nothing else
for him. It was this or nothing. The sight of her face, her trembling,
pierced his soul with an amazing joy, and it seemed as if the voice of
some invisible Controller of all human actions, great and small,
breathed in his ear saying: "Now! Take your chance! This is your true
destiny!"

There was no one in the carriage but a young girl at the further end
huddled behind a novel. But had there been twenty there, it would not
have altered his resolution. The Warden placed his hand on May's arm.

"I am travelling with this lady as far as Reading," he said to the
porter, "but I have come too late to get a ticket. Tell the guard,
please."

The Warden showed no sign now of haste or excitement; he had regained
his usual courteous and deliberate manner, for the purpose of his life
was his again. He helped her in and followed her. The door was banged
behind them. There was May's little bundle of rug and umbrella on the
seat. He moved it on one side so that she could sit there. The train
began to slide off.

May sank into her seat too dazed to think. He sat down opposite to her.
They both knew that the moment of their lives had come.

Then he leaned forward, not caring whether he was observed or not
observed from the other end of the carriage. He leaned forward and
grasping both of May's hands in his, he looked into her eyes with his
own slow moving, narrow eyes that absorbed the light. The corners of her
mouth were trembling, her eyelids trembling.

They never spoke a word as the train moved away and left behind that
fair ancient city enshrined in squalor and in raucous brick; left behind
the flat meadows, the sluggish river and the