was reproduced
at a distance of years, as if by some mocking witchcraft, the sight so
familiar on the Parade at Brighton of the financier de Barral walking
with his only daughter. One comes out of prison in the same clothes one
wore on the day of condemnation, no matter how long one has been put away
there. Oh, they last! They last! But there is something which is
preserved by prison life even better than one's discarded clothing. It
is the force, the vividness of one's sentiments. A monastery will do
that too; but in the unholy claustration of a jail you are thrown back
wholly upon yourself--for God and Faith are not there. The people
outside disperse their affections, you hoard yours, you nurse them into
intensity. What they let slip, what they forget in the movement and
changes of free life, you hold on to, amplify, exaggerate into a rank
growth of memories. They can look with a smile at the troubles and pains
of the past; but you can't. Old pains keep on gnawing at your heart, old
desires, old deceptions, old dreams, assailing you in the dead stillness
of your present where nothing moves except the irrecoverable minutes of
your life.

De Barral was out and, for a time speechless, being led away almost
before he had taken possession of the free world, by his daughter. Flora
controlled herself well. They walked along quickly for some distance.
The cab had been left round the corner--round several corners for all I
know. He was flustered, out of breath, when she helped him in and
followed herself. Inside that rolling box, turning towards that
recovered presence with her heart too full for words she felt the desire
of tears she had managed to keep down abandon her suddenly, her
half-mournful, half-triumphant exultation subside, every fibre of her
body, relaxed in tenderness, go stiff in the close look she took at his
face. He _was_ different. There was something. Yes, there was
something between them, something hard and impalpable, the ghost of these
high walls.

How old he was, how unlike!

She shook off this impression, amazed and frightened by it of course. And
remorseful too. Naturally. She threw her arms round his neck. He
returned that hug awkwardly, as if not in perfect control of his arms,
with a fumbling and uncertain pressure. She hid her face on his breast.
It was as though she were pressing it against a stone. They released
each other and presently the cab was rolling along at a jo