again?" she repeated, puzzled.

"I mean that I have left them at home. I have left them there, perhaps,
to a certain extent deliberately," he went on. "You see, the idea is
still with me. I think that I shall rewrite them when I have settled down
in America. I fancy that I shall find myself in an atmosphere more
conducive to the sort of work I want to do. I would rather not be
handicapped by the ghosts of my old failures."

"One's ghosts are hard sometimes to escape from," she whispered.

He clutched nervously at the end of his rug. She looked up and down along
the row of chairs. There were one or two slumbering forms, but most were
empty. There were no promenaders in sight.

"You know," she asked, her voice still very low, "why I left the saloon a
little abruptly this evening?"

"Why?" he demanded.

"Because," she went on, "I could see the effect which Mr. Raymond
Greene's story had upon you; because I, also, was in that train, and I
have better eyesight than Mr. Greene. You were one of the two men who
were walking along the towpath."

"Well?" he muttered.

"You have nothing to tell me?"

"Nothing!"

She waited for a moment.

"At least you have not attempted to persuade me that you lingered
underneath that bridge to escape from the rain," she remarked.

"If I cannot tell you the truth," he promised, "I am not going to tell
you a lie, but apart from that I admit nothing. I do not even admit that
it was I whom you saw."

She laid her hand upon his. The touch of her fingers was wonderful, cool
and soft and somehow reassuring. He felt a sense of relaxation, felt the
strain of living suddenly grow less.

"You know," she said, "all my friends tell me that I am a restful person.
You are living at high pressure, are you not? Try and forget it. Fate
makes queer uses of all of us sometimes. She sends her noblest sons down
into the shadows and pitchforks her outcasts into the high places of
life. Those do best who learn to control themselves, to live and think
for the best."

"Go on talking to me," he begged. "Is it your voice, I wonder, that is so
soothing, or just what you say?"

She smiled reassuringly.

"You are glad because you have found a friend," she told him, "and a
friend who, even if she does not understand, does not wish to understand.
Do you see?"

"I wish I felt that I deserved it," he groaned.

She laughed almost gaily.

"What a sorting up there would be of our places in life," she declar