ild, fond of gaiety and pleasure, with no
one to guide her. She didn't understand.

Howard and Gertie Sumners were walking behind him now with the
luncheon-basket between them, talking earnestly in muffled whispers
that were too intimate, and behind them again came the Gang itself,
laughing, jostling one another, exchanging facetiousness in their
medical-Chelsea jargon.

His father would have liked them. Connie Edwards, no doubt, would have
been one of those dazzling, noisy phenomena that burst periodically on
the Stonehouse horizon.

Supposing he should come to like them too--to tolerate their ways,
their loose living, loose thinking----?

He remembered how that very afternoon he had tried to be one of them,
and sickened before himself.

Francey called to him through the darkness.

"Miss Forsyth's so tired, Robert. Couldn't you carry her?"

And he took Christine in his arms, whilst she laughed and protested
feebly. It was awful to feel how little she was. Her head rested
against his shoulder.

"It's a longer road than I thought. You're very strong, Robert. Your
father was strong too."

It had been a successful day. And yet, as they sat packed close
together in the dim, third-class carriage, they were like captives who
had escaped and were being taken back into captivity. The sickly,
overhead light fell on their tired faces, out of which the blood,
called up by the sun and wind, had receded, leaving their city pallor.
Connie Edwards had indeed produced a lip-stick from her gaudy bead bag,
but after a fretful effort had flung it back.

"What's the good? Who cares----?"

And Cosgrave huddled closer to her, wan-eyed, hunted-looking. It was
the ghost of that exam that wouldn't be laid--the prophetic vision of
the row that waited for him, grinding its teeth.

Only Gertie Sumners and Howard had a queer, remote look, as though in
that recent muffled exchange they had reached some desperate resolve.

The wet, gleaming platform slid away from them. There was a faint red
light in the west where the sunset had been drowned. Christine turned
her face towards it. She was like a little old child. Her little feet
in the shabby, worn-out shoes scarcely touched the floor. Her drooping
hat was askew--forgotten.

"It has been a wonderful day. But I mustn't come again. I'm too old.
It's silly to fall in love with life when one is old."

Robert leant across to her. He ached with his love and pity.

"T