red in good time that for an old "basket-maker" to
be familiar with such literary masterpieces might seem strange to a
wide-awake "journalist," therefore he checked himself in time.

"Oh, I don't know! I believe I was thinking of 'Pilgrim's Progress'!" he
said.

"'Pilgrim's Progress'? Ah! A fine book--a grand book! Twelve years and a
half of imprisonment in Bedford Jail turned Bunyan out immortal! And
here am I--_not_ in jail--but free to roam where I choose,--with twenty
pounds! By Jove! I ought to be greater than Bunyan! Now 'Pilgrim's
Progress' was a 'novel,' if you like!"

"I thought,"--submitted Helmsley, with the well-assumed air of a man who
was not very conversant with literature--"that it was a religious book?"

"So it is. A religious novel. And a splendid one! But humanity's gone
past that now--it wants a wider view--a bigger, broader outlook. Do you
know--" and here he stopped in the middle of the rugged winding street,
and looked earnestly at his companion--"do you know what I see men doing
at the present day?--I see them rushing towards the verge--the very
extreme edge of what they imagine to be the Actual--and from that edge
getting ready to plunge--into Nothingness!"

Something thrilling in his voice touched a responsive chord in
Helmsley's own heart.

"Why--that is where we all tend!" he said, with a quick sigh--"That is
where _I_ am tending!--where _you_, in your time, must also
tend--nothingness--or death!"

"No!" said Reay, almost loudly--"That's not true! That's just what I
deny! For me there is no 'Nothingness'--no 'death'! Space is full of
creative organisms. Dissolution means re-birth. It is all
life--life:--glorious life! We live--we have always lived--we _shall_
always live!" He paused, flushing a little as though half ashamed of
his own enthusiasm--then, dropping his voice to its normal tone he
said--"You've got me on my hobby horse--I must come off it, or I shall
gallop too far! We're just at the top of the street now. Shall I leave
you here?"

"Please come on to the cottage,"--said Helmsley--"I'm sure Mary--Miss
Deane--will give you a cup of tea."

Angus Reay smiled.

"I don't allow myself that luxury,"--he said.

"Not when you're invited to share it with others?"

"Oh yes, in that way I do--but I'm not overburdened with friends just
now. A man must have more than twenty pounds to be 'asked out'
anywhere!"

"Well, _I_ ask you out!"--said Helmsley, smiling--"Or rather, I ask y