nds and
looked into her eyes. "What are you going to do now?" said he.

"Nothing. We must go back. We have gone too far," said she.

"Too far?" He dropped her hands.

She smiled in the old ambiguous, maddening way. "Yes; much too far. We
shall be late for dinner."

They turned back by the way they had come. Near the Marble Arch a small
crowd was gathered round a poor street preacher with a raucous voice.
They could hear him as they passed.

"We're all sinners," shouted the preacher. (They stopped and looked at
each other with a faint smile. All sinners--that was what Nevill used to
say, all sinners--or fools.) "We're all sinners, you and me, but Jesus
can save us. 'E loves sinners. 'E bears their sins; your sins an' my
sins, dear brethren; 'e bears the sins of the 'ole world. Why, that's
wot 'e came inter the world for--to save sinners. Ter save 'em from death
an' everlasting 'ell! That's wot Jesus does for sinners."

Oh, Molly, Molly, what has he done for fools?

He took her to Ridgmount Gardens, and left her at the door of the flat.

She was incomprehensible, this little Mrs. Tyson. But up till now his
own state of mind had been plain. He knew where he was drifting; he had
always known. But where she was drifting, or whether she was drifting at
all, he did not know; that is to say, he was not sure. And up till now he
had not tried very hard to make sure. He was a person of infinite tact,
and could boast with some truth that he had never done an abrupt or
clumsy thing. By this time his attitude of doubt had given a sort of
metaphysical character to this interest of the senses; he was almost
content to wait and let the world come round to him. It was to be
supposed that Mrs. Nevill Tyson, being Mrs. Nevill Tyson, would have
fathomed him long ago if he had been of the same clay as her engaging
husband. He was of clay, no doubt, but it was not the same clay; and it
was impossible to say how much she knew or had divined; other women were
no rule for her, or else--No. One thing was certain, he would never have
betrayed Tyson until Tyson had betrayed her. As it was, his relations
with her were sufficiently abnormal to be exciting; it was not passion,
it was a rush of minute sensations, swarming and swirling like a dance of
fire-flies--an endless approach and flight.

After all, he would not have had it otherwise. The charm, he told
himself, was in the levity of the situation. The thread by which she held
him was so