enry, strangely desolate, turned and walked away from the station.

2

In the excitement of leaving Ballymartin and sightseeing in the
shipyard, he had almost forgotten Sheila Morgan, but now, his mind
stimulated by his talk with Marsh and his spirit depressed by his
loneliness, his thoughts returned to her, and it seemed to him that he
detested her. She had insulted him, struck him, humiliated and shamed
him. When he remembered that he had told her of his love for her and had
asked her to marry him, and had been told in reply that she wanted a
man, not a coward, he felt that he could not bear to return to Ireland
again. His mood was mingled misery and gladness. At Boveyhayne, thank
heaven, he would be free of Sheila and probably he would never think of
her again. Gilbert and Ninian would fill his mind, and of course there
would be Mrs. Graham and Mary. Mary! It was strange that he should have
let Mary slip out of his thoughts and let Sheila slip into them. He had
actually proposed to Mary and she had accepted him, and then he had left
her and forgotten her because of Sheila. He remembered that he had not
replied to the letter she had written to him before John Marsh came to
Ballymartin. He had intended to write, but somehow he had not done so
... and then Sheila came, and it was impossible to write to her. He
wondered what he should say to her when they met. Would she come to
Whitcombe station to meet him? What was he to say to her?...

He had treated her shabbily. Of course, she was only a kid, as Ninian
himself would say, but then he had made love to her, and anyhow she
would be less of a kid now than she was when he last saw her.... He got
tired of walking about the streets, and he made his way to the quays and
passed across the gangway on to the deck of the steamer. A cool air was
blowing up the Lagan from the Lough, and when he leaned over the side of
the ship he could see the dark skeleton shape of the shipyard. His
thoughts were extraordinarily confused, rambling about his father and
Sheila Morgan and John Marsh and Mary Graham and Tom Arthurs and Ireland
and ships and England and Gilbert Farlow and Ninian and Roger....

"I ought never to have thought of any one but Mary," he said to himself
at last. "I _really_ love her. I was only ... only passing the time with
Sheila!"

"Well, thank God I'll soon be in Devonshire," he went on, "and out of
all this. If only my Trinity time were over, and I were settled i