gone impatiently to the
window, turned round with words that were meant to be final.

'It's quite decided. You begin your preparations at once, and to-morrow
morning you go on board with us.'

'But if I don't go to Wrotham this afternoon, she'll be here either
to-night or the first thing to-morrow. I'm sure of it!'

'By four or five o'clock,' said Earwaker, 'you can have broken up the
camp. You've often done it at shorter notice. Go to an hotel for the
night.'

'I must write to the poor woman.'

'Do as you like about that.'

'Who is to help her, if she gets into difficulties--as she's always
doing? Who is to advise her about Bella's education? Who is to pay--I
mean, who will see to----? Oh, confound it!'

The listeners glanced at each other.

'Are her affairs in order?' asked Earwaker. 'Has she a sufficient
income?'

'For ordinary needs, quite sufficient. But'----

'Then you needn't be in the least uneasy. Let her know where you are,
when the equator is between you. Watch over her interests from a
distance, if you like. I can as good as promise you that Bella will
wait hopefully to see her friend again.'

Malkin succumbed to argument and exhaustion. Facing Earwaker with a
look of pathetic appeal, he asked hoarsely:

'Will you stand by me till it's over? Have you time?'

'I can give you till five o'clock.'

'Then I'll go and dress. Ring the bell, Tom, and ask them to bring up
some beer.'

Before three had struck, the arrangements for flight were completed. A
heavily-laden cab bore away Malkin's personal property; within sat the
unhappy man and his faithful friend.

The next morning Earwaker went down to Tilbury, and said farewell to
the travellers on board the steamship Orient. Mrs. Thomas had already
taken her brother-in-law under her special care.

'It's only three children to look after, instead of two,' she remarked,
in a laughing aside to the journalist. 'How grateful he will be to you
in a few days! And I'm sure _we_ are already.'

Malkin's eyes were no longer quite lustreless. At the last moment he
talked with animation of 'two years hence', and there was vigour in the
waving of his hand as the vessel started seaward.

CHAPTER III

Peak lost no time in leaving Exeter. To lighten his baggage, and to get
rid of possessions to which hateful memories attached, he sold all his
books that had any bearing on theology. The incomplete translation of
_Bibel und Natur_ he committed to the fla