mahogany board, in the distance. There was something between him and them. He could not get into touch. He did not want them; he did not want his drink. Turning abruptly, he went out. On the threshold he stood and looked at the lighted street. But he was not of it or in it. Something separated him. Everything went on there below those lamps, shut away from him. He could not get at them. He felt he couldn't touch the lamp-posts, not if he reached. Where could he go? There was nowhere to go, neither back into the inn, or forward anywhere. He felt stifled. There was nowhere for him. The stress grew inside him; he felt he should smash.
“I mustn't,” he said; and, turning blindly, he went in and drank. Sometimes the drink did him good; sometimes it made him worse. He ran down the road. For ever restless, he went here, there, everywhere. He determined to work. But when he had made six strokes, he loathed the pencil violently, got up, and went away, hurried off to a club where he could play cards or billiards, to a place where he could flirt with a barmaid who was no more to him than the brass pump-handle she drew.
He was very thin and lantern-jawed. He dared not meet his own eyes in the mirror; he never looked at himself. He wanted to get away from himself, but there was nothing to get hold of. In despair he thought of Miriam. Perhaps—perhaps—?
Then, happening to go into the Unitarian Church one Sunday evening, when they stood up to sing the second hymn he saw her before him. The light glistened on her lower lip as she sang. She looked as if she had got something, at any rate: some hope in heaven, if not in earth. Her comfort and her life seemed in the after-world. A warm, strong feeling for her came up. She seemed to yearn, as she sang, for the mystery and comfort. He put his hope in her. He longed for the sermon to be over, to speak to her.
The throng carried her out just before him. He could nearly touch her. She did not know he was there. He saw the brown, humble nape of her neck under its black curls. He would leave himself to her. She was better and bigger than he. He would depend on her.
She went wandering, in her blind way, through the little throngs of people outside the church. She always looked so lost and out of place among people. He went forward and put his hand on her arm. She started violently. Her great brown eyes dilated in fear, then went questioning at the sight of him. He shrank slightly from her.
“I didn't know—” she faltered.
“Nor I,” he said.
He looked away. His sudden, flaring hope sank again.
“What are you doing in town?” he asked.
“I'm staying at Cousin Anne's.”
“Ha! For long?”
“No; only till to-morrow.”
“Must you go straight home?”
She looked at him, then hid her face under her hat-brim.
“No,” she said—“no; it's not necessary.”
He turned away, and she went with him. They threaded through the throng of church people. The organ was still sounding in St. Mary's. Dark figures came through the lighted doors; people were coming down the steps. The large coloured windows glowed up in the night. The church was like a great lantern suspended. They went down Hollow Stone, and he took the car for the Bridges.
“You will just have supper with me,” he said: “then I'll bring you back.”
“Very well,” she replied, low and husky.
They scarcely spoke while they were on the car. The Trent ran dark and full under the bridge. Away towards Colwick all was black night. He lived down Holme Road, on the naked edge of the town, facing across the river meadows towards Sneinton Hermitage and the steep scrap of Colwick Wood. The floods were out. The silent water and the darkness spread away on their left. Almost afraid, they hurried along by the houses.
Supper was laid. He swung the curtain over the window. There was a bowl of freesias and scarlet anemones on the table. She bent to them. Still touching them with her finger-tips, she looked up at him, saying:
“Aren't they beautiful?”
“Yes,” he said. “What will you drink—coffee?”
“I should like it,” she said.
“Then excuse me a moment.”
He went out to the kitchen.
Miriam took off her things and looked round. It was a bare, severe room. Her photo, Clara's, Annie's, were on the wall. She looked on the drawing-board to see what he was doing. There were only a few meaningless lines. She looked to see what books he was reading. Evidently just an ordinary novel. The letters in the rack she saw were from Annie, Arthur, and from some man or other she did not know. Everything he had touched, everything that was in the least personal to him, she examined with lingering absorption. He had been gone from her for so long, she wanted to rediscover him, his position, what he was now. But there was not much in the room to help her. It only made her feel rather sad, it was so hard and comfortless.
She was curiously examining a sketch-book when he returned with the coffee.
“There's nothing new in it,” he said, “and nothing very interesting.”
He put down the tray, and went to look over her shoulder. She turned the pages slowly, intent on examining everything.
“H'm!” he said, as she paused at a sketch. “I'd forgotten that. It's not bad, is it?”
“No,” she said. “I don't quite understand it.”
He took the book from her and went through it. Again he made a curious sound of surprise and pleasure.
“There's some not bad stuff in there,” he said.
“Not at all bad,” she answered gravely.
He felt again her interest in his work. Or was it for himself? Why was she always most interested in him as he appeared in his work?
They sat down to supper.
“By the way,” he said, “didn't I hear something about your earning your own living?”
“Yes,” she replied, bowing her dark head over her cup. “And what of it?”
“I'm merely going to the farming college at Broughton for three months, and I shall probably be kept on as a teacher there.”
“I say—that sounds all right for you! You always wanted to be independent.”
“Yes.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I only knew last week.”
“But I heard a month ago,” he said.
“Yes; but nothing was settled then.”
“I should have thought,” he said, “you'd have told me you were trying.”
She ate her food in the deliberate, constrained way, almost as if she recoiled a little from doing anything so publicly, that he knew so well.
“I
