she refused to talk about Springfield at all,--indeed I
could not understand her. She seemed as though she had a great problem
to solve, and was unable to see her way through it.

I had no opportunity of talking with my friend till the next day. His
father and mother monopolized him so completely that there was no
chance of getting a word alone with him. But when Lord Carbis informed
me that he had made arrangements for Lady Carbis and his son to return
home, I made my way to him.

'Do you feel well enough for a chat?' I asked.

'Oh, quite,' he replied. 'I was waiting all yesterday for an
opportunity, but none came.'

'Edgecumbe,' I said,--'you will forgive me for still calling you that,
won't you?--but for the life of me I can't fasten on that new name of
yours.'

'Can't you? It's as natural as anything to me now. But call me Jack,
will you? I wish you would. Do you know, when I heard the old name
the night before last, I--I--but there, I can't tell you. It seemed to
open a new world to me,--all my boyhood came back, all those things
which made life wonderful. Yes, that's it, call me Jack.'

'Well, then, Jack,' I said, 'I have been wondering. Are your
experiences at that Y.M.C.A. hut real to you now?'

'Of course,' he replied quietly; 'why, they are not a matter of memory,
you know; they went down to the very depths of life.'

'And the convictions which were the result of those experiences? Do
you feel as you did about drink and that sort of thing?'

'Exactly.'

'And you will stand by what you said in London the other night?'

'Of course,--why shouldn't I?'

'I was only wondering. Do you know, Jack,--you will forgive me for
saying so, I am sure, but you present a kind of problem to me.'

'Do I?' and he laughed merrily as he spoke. 'You are wondering whether
my early associations, now that they have come back to me, are stronger
than what I have experienced since? Not a bit of it. I did a good
deal of thinking last night, after I had got to bed. You see, I tried
to work things out, and--and--it is all very wonderful, you know. I
wasn't a bad chap in the old days, by no means a pattern young man, but
on the whole I went straight,--I wasn't immoral, but I had no
religion,--I never thought about it. I had a good house-master when I
went to school, and under him I imbibed a sort of code of honour. It
didn't amount to very much, and yet it did, for he taught me to be an
English gentleman.