id simply, and went over and touched the heaving
shoulders reflectively. "Poor Soolsby!"

"He's been sober four years--over four," she said eagerly. "When he knew
you'd come again, he got wild, and he would have the drink in spite of
all. Walking from Heddington, I saw him at the tavern, and brought him
home."

"At the tavern--" David said reflectively.

"The Fox and Goose, sir." She turned her face away again, and David's
head came up with a quick motion. There it was, five years ago, that he
had drunk at the bar, and had fought Jasper Kimber.

"Poor fellow!" he said again, and listened to Soolsby's stertorous
breathing, as a physician looks at a patient whose case he cannot
control, does not wholly understand.

The hand of the sleeping man was suddenly raised, his head gave a jerk,
and he said mumblingly: "Claridge for ever!"

Kate nervously intervened. "It fair beat him, your coming back, sir.
It's awful temptation, the drink. I lived in it for years, and it's
cruel hard to fight it when you're worked up either way, sorrow or joy.
There's a real pleasure in being drunk, I'm sure. While it lasts you're
rich, and you're young, and you don't care what happens. It's kind of
you to take it like this, sir, seeing you've never been tempted and
mightn't understand." David shook his head sadly, and looked at Soolsby
in silence.

"I don't suppose he took a quarter what he used to take, but it made him
drunk. 'Twas but a minute of madness. You've saved him right enough."

"I was not blaming him. I understand--I understand."

He looked at her clearly. She was healthy and fine-looking, with
large, eloquent eyes. Her dress was severe and quiet, as became her
occupation--a plain, dark grey, but the shapely fulness of the figure
gave softness to the outlines. It was no wonder Jasper Kimber wished
to marry her; and, if he did, the future of the man was sure. She had
a temperament which might have made her an adventuress--or an
opera-singer. She had been touched in time, and she had never looked
back.

"You are with Lady Eglington now, I have heard?" he asked.

She nodded.

"It was hard for you in London at first?"

She met his look steadily. "It was easy in a way. I could see round me
what was the right thing to do. Oh, that was what was so awful in the
old life over there at Heddington,"--she pointed beyond the hill, "we
didn't know what was good and what was bad. The poor people in big
working-places like Heddingto