d?"

"I was," he said, "horribly frightened. I--I--it sounds idiotic, but I
thought I should go mad at first--I did really: and yet I _had_ to go
through with it. And then I got among the figures of the people in the
Catacombs, the people who died for--for things, don't you know, died in
such horrible ways. And there they were, so calm--and believing it was
all all right. And I thought about what they'd gone through. It sounds
awful rot I know, dear--but I expect I was sleepy. Those wax people,
they sort of seemed as if they were alive, and were telling me there
wasn't anything to be frightened about. I felt as if I were one of them,
and they were all my friends, and they'd wake me if anything went wrong,
so I just went to sleep."

"I think I understand," she said. But she didn't.

"And the odd thing is," he went on, "I've never been afraid of the dark
since. Perhaps his calling me a coward had something to do with it."

"I don't think so," said she. And she was right. But she would never
have understood how, nor why.

III

THE STRANGER WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN OBSERVED

"There he goes--isn't he simply detestable!" She spoke suddenly, after a
silence longer than was usual to her; she was tired, and her voice was a
note or two above its habitual key. She blushed, a deep pink blush of
intense annoyance, as the young man passed down the long platform among
the crowd of city men and typewriting girls, patiently waiting for the
belated train to allow them to go home from work.

"Oh, do you think he heard? Oh, Molly--I believe he did!"

"Nonsense!" said Molly briskly, "of course he didn't. And I must say I
don't think he's so bad. If he didn't look so sulky he wouldn't be
_half_ bad, really. If his eyebrows weren't tied up into knots, I
believe he'd look quite too frightfully sweet for anything."

"He's exactly like that Polish model we had last week. Oh, Molly, he's
coming back again."

Again he passed the two girls. His expression was certainly not amiable.

"How long have you known him?" Molly asked.

"I _don't_ know him. I tell you I only see him on the platform at Mill
Vale. He and I seem to be the only people--the only decent
people--who've found out the new station. He goes up by the 9.1 every
day, and so do I. And the train's always late, so we have the platform
and the booking office to ourselves. And there we sit, or stand, or
walk, morning after morning like two stuck pigs in a trough of silence."