Two weeks passed and Joyce found himself in Hull. During the previous week Miss Stevens had lodged quite near to the theatre, and there had been no occasion for his escort after the performance. Besides, she had maintained a distant attitude toward him which precluded further offer of sympathy in her affairs. He was sorry for her; she seemed lonely, like himself, and, like himself, to have some inward suffering that made life bitter. He was glad, then, to find at Hull that they lodged in the same street, some distance away from the Theatre Royal, so that he could propose, as a natural thing, the resumption of their former habit. She had acquiesced readily on the Monday night, and they had met as a matter of course on the four succeeding evenings. Her late aloofness was followed by a more intimate and submissive manner. There were no more defiant utterances and fits of petulance. She seemed anxious to atone for past irritability, and Joyce, vaguely remembering a spring-tide cynicism of his, that one must be astonished at nothing in a woman, received these advances kindly, and looked upon their friendly relations as consolidated.

He also found himself progressing in favour with the rest of the company. Several desultory chats with Miss Verrinder, the friend of Yvonne, had not only brightened the dulness of the theatre life, but also given him a little prestige among his colleagues. For there is a good deal of humanity in man, including the chorus of comic opera. So, such as it was, Joyce’s contentment rose to high-level at Hull. He did not couple the town with Hell and Halifax in his litany of supplication, but, on the contrary, found it a not unpleasant place, which, moreover, was in process of undergoing a rare week of sunshine.

His favourite spot was the Corporation Pier, with its double deck and comfortable seats and view across the Humber. His well-worn clothes were in harmony with its frequenters, and he felt more at ease than on the Parade of a seaside resort thronged with well-dressed people. Here he brought his book and pipe, read discursively, watched the shipping, fell into talk with seafaring men, who told him the tonnage of vessels and the ports from which they came. Often a great steamer performing the passenger service across the North Sea would come into the docks close by, and he would go and watch her land her passengers and cargo. The hurry and movement were welcome to him, breaking, as they did, the lethargy of the day. If the docks were quiet, there was always the mild excitement of witnessing the arrival of the Grimsby boat at the pier.

On Saturday morning this last incident had attracted him from his seat on the lower gallery to the little knot of expectant idlers gathered by the railing. The steamer was within a quarter of a mile, the churn of her paddles the only break visible in the sluggish water of the river. He stood leaning over, pipe in mouth, idly watching her draw near. When she was moored alongside and the gangway pushed on to the landing-stage below, he moved with the others to the head of the slope to watch the passengers ascend. Why he should particularly interest himself in the passage of humdrum labourers, fishwives, artisans, and young women come to shop in Hull, he did not know. He watched them, with unspeculating gaze, pass hurrying by, until suddenly a pair of evil eyes looking straight into his own made him start back with a shiver of dismay.

Escape was impossible; in another moment the man was by his side.

“Hullo, old pal! Who would have thought of seeing you?”

Joyce did not take the dirty hand that was proffered. He stuck his own deep in his pockets, frowned at the man, and turned away. But the other followed.

“Look here, old pal, I don’t call this a friendly lead—bust me if I do. You might pass the time of day with a bloke—especially as it is n’t so long ago——”

The man’s voice was loud, the pier busy with people. The air seemed to Joyce filled with a thousand listening ears. His blood tingled with shame. He faced round with an angry look.

“What do you want with me?”

“Oh, don’t take on, old pal,” replied the other, in lower tones. “I ain’t going to give you away—don’t you fear. It’s only pleasant to meet old pals again—in better circs. Ain’t it?”

Joyce had always loathed him—a flabby, sallow, greasy-faced fellow, with blear eyes and a protruding under-lip. He had been sentenced for a foul offence against decency. Joyce’s soul used to revolt at the sight of him as they sat on either side of the reeking tub washing up the cooking utensils in the prison kitchen. The hateful stench rose again to his nostrils now and turned his stomach.

“Can’t you see I am going to have nothing to do with you?” he said angrily.

“Come, don’t be hard on a bloke when he’s down,” replied the man. “It ain’t everyone that gets on their legs again when they comes out. I ’ve been out two months, and I haven’t had a job yet. S’welp me! And there’s the wife and the kids starving. Give us a couple of quid to send to ’em and make ’em happy again. Just two thick uns.”

Joyce stared at him, breathless with indignation at his impudence.

“I ’ll see you damned first!” he cried fiercely.

“Well, make it ten bob, or five, or the price of a drink, old pal. You can’t leave an old fellow-boarder in distress, or the luck will turn agen you.”

He leered up into Joyce’s face, disclosing a jagged row of yellow teeth. But Joyce started forward and took him by the collar.

“If you try to blackmail me,” said he, pointing to a policeman on the quay, “I ’ll give you in charge. Just stay where you are and let me go my ways.”

He released him and marched off. But the man did not attempt to follow. He slipped into a seat close by and sang out sarcastically: “If you ’ll leave your address, I ’ll send you a mourning card when the kids is dead!”

Joyce caught the words as he hurried down the stairs. When he had crossed the quay to the hotels, he looked up at the pier, and saw the man leaning over with a grin on his face. It was only when he reached his lodging that he breathed freely again.

What he had long expected had come to pass—recognition by a fellow-prisoner. It was a horrible experience. It might occur again and again indefinitely. He walked agitated up and down his poorly-furnished bedroom. Could he do nothing to guard against such things in the future? If he could only disguise himself! Then he remembered that the moustache which might have served him as a slight protection against casual glances had been sacrificed to theatrical exigencies. He ground his teeth at the futility of the idea. And at intervals wrath rose up hot within him at the man’s cool impudence. Two pounds—more than a week’s salary—to be thrown away on swine like that! He laughed savagely at the thought.

He grew calm after a time, lay down on his bed and opened a book. But the face of the man, bringing with it scenes of a past in which they had been associated came between his eyes and the page.

“Anyhow, it’s over,” he exclaimed at last, with a determined effort to banish the memories. “And, thank God, it’s Saturday, and I shall be in Leeds to-morrow.”

To avoid the chance of meeting him in the streets, however, he stayed at home all day, sending round a note of excuse on the score of seediness to Miss Stevens, with whom he had arranged to take an afternoon stroll. On his way to the theatre he caught sight of the man standing by a gas-lamp at a street-corner on the other side of the way. He hurried on, glad at his escape, for the glance of the man’s eyes resting upon him was abhorrent.

For the first time since he had started on the tour the rough companionship of the dressing-room was a comfort and delight. Here were kindly words, welcoming faces, the pleasant familiarity of common avocation. He forgot the heat, and the crush, and the tomfool aspect the dressing had always presented. The place was home-like, familiar, sheltering. His costume, as he took it down from the peg, seemed like an old friend. The jolly voices of his companions rang gratefully in his ears. The disgust of the day faded into the memory of a nightmare. This was a reality—this hearty good-fellowship with uncontaminated men.

When he went out with them on to the stage, before the curtain rose, and met the ladies of the chorus, he greeted those that he liked with a newer sense of friendliness. Until then he had never been aware how pleasant it was to have Annie Stevens’s head resting on his knee. He thanked God he was a criminal no longer—not as that other man was. Certainly Phariseeism is justifiable at times.

He was very kind to Miss Stevens all the evening during the waits, when they happened to be together. His apologies for having to put off their engagement met with her full acceptance. She was solicitous as to his health—asked him in her downright fashion whether he ate enough.

“You are a gentleman, you know, and not accustomed to poor people’s ways and their privations.”

“My dear,” he replied, dropping for the first time into the old professional’s mode of address. “I ’ve gone through privations in my life that you have never dreamed of. This is clover—knee-deep.”

And he believed it; thought, too, what a fool he had been to grumble at this honest, pleasant theatrical life. The reaction had rather excited him.

“I look upon myself as jolly well off here,” he said. “And I eat like an ox, I assure you. Do you know, it’s very good of you to take an interest in me?”

“Do you think so?” said the girl, with a little laugh, and turning away her head.

At the end of the first act a fresh pleasure awaited him. It was a night of surprising sensations. The stage-manager called him into his room.

“Walker has been telegraphed for—wife very ill—and he won’t be able to play on Monday. Do you think you could play his part till he comes back?”

“Rather!” said Joyce, delighted.

“You are the only one of the crowd that can sing worth a cent,” said the stage-manager with a seasonable mixture of profanity. “I ’ll pull you through. Perhaps he’s not coming back at all. One never knows. If he does n’t and you go all right, there’s no reason why you should n’t stick to it.”

Walker spoke exactly four lines, sang once in a quartette and had a couplet solo. Otherwise he made himself useful in the chorus. But it was a part, his name was down in the bill. The value of the step, moral, pecuniary and professional was considerable. Joyce felt that his luck had turned at last. Here was the gate into the profession proper open to him.

The news soon spread through the company. A “call” for rehearsal on Monday morning for the chorus and those of the principals concerned in the change was posted up. He felt himself a person of some importance. McKay congratulated him; and Blake, although he said, “You swells get all the fat,” spoke by no means enviously. The others cracked jokes and suggested drinks all round, which, being sent for by Joyce, were consumed in the dressing-room. Annie Stevens squeezed his hand, during their dance together, and whispered a word of pleasure. He had no idea that so infinitesimal a success could have masqueraded as such a triumph. He longed to get back to his room to write it all to Yvonne.

At the stage-door, after the performance, he met Annie Stevens, who had hurried through her dressing.

“I’m glad for your sake, but I’m sorry for my own,” she said, after they had walked a few steps.

“Why, what difference can it make to you?” asked Joyce laughing.

“I shall have to play and sing with somebody else.”

“True. I was forgetting. Yes, it will seem funny. I shall miss you too.”

“I don’t believe you care one bit,” said the girl.

To acquiesce would have been rude. He answered her with vague regrets. She interrupted him with a laugh in which was the faintest note of scorn.

“Oh, you’re very glad to get rid of me, and the stupid kissing and everything. You won’t have to give any one a Chinese kiss now. And they were very Chinese, you know.”

“An English kiss would have been out of the picture,” said Joyce.

“We’re not in the picture now,” she said softly.

Joyce felt that he was doing something very foolish, perhaps dangerous. He had never had the remotest fancy for allowing his companionship with her to degenerate into a flirtation. But what could he do? He bent down and kissed her.

There was an awkward silence for a few yards, which she broke at last in her irrelevant way.

“I should so like a glass of port wine tonight.”

“So should I,” said Joyce, cheerfully. “Or something like it. We ’ll go into the Crown yonder.”

Two or three times before they had had a glass together on their way home. To-night, therefore, the suggestion seemed natural. They entered the private bar of the public-house, and Joyce ordered the liquors. Only one young man was there, reading a sporting paper on a high stool. It was a quiet place, with the view beyond the counter down the bar cut off by a ground-glass screen, through a low space under which the customers were served.

Joyce pushed the port wine smilingly to Miss Stevens, and, with his back to the door, was pouring some water into his whisky, when a voice sounded in his ear, causing him to start violently and flood the counter.

“I say, old pal, are you goin’ to help a poor feller?”

The man was standing behind him, the leer upon his greasy face. Joyce had been blissfully unaware that he had dogged his steps from that street corner to the stage-door of the theatre, and from the stage-door hither. The sight of him was a stroke of cold terror.

“Go away. I ’ll give you in charge,” he stammered, losing his head for the moment.

Annie Stevens clutched his arm.

“Who is this beastly man?” she said.

“Only an old pal, miss,” said the man, edging towards the door. “We was in quod many months together, and now he won’t give me ’arf a crown to keep me from starving.”

“By God!” cried Joyce, making a sudden dash at him.

But the man was too quick; he had secured his retreat, and when Joyce reached the pavement—the house was at a corner of cross roads—he could not catch the fall of his footsteps. The man had vanished into the night, and pursuit was hopeless. It had all passed with the sudden unexpectedness of a dream. Joyce put his hand to his forehead and tried to think. He could scarcely realise exactly what had happened. He seemed to be enveloped with tiny tingling waves that drew his skin tight like a drum for his heart to beat against. He turned, and saw Annie Stevens standing by his side, in the light of the public-house, with anger on her face.

“What have you got to say for yourself?” she asked brusquely.

“Do you believe that man?” said Joyce, the words coming painfully.

Their lack of conviction damned him. The girl drew back a step, and looked at him with revulsion in her eyes.

“You can’t deny it! I see that you can’t. You’ve just come out of prison.”

If the world had been at his feet he could not have lied convincingly at that moment. He could only stare at her haggardly and rack his brains for words that would not come. She moved away instinctively from the public glare and turned down the dark street that led toward their destination.

“It’s a lie,” he said desperately, striding to her side.

“No it is n’t. It’s truth. I read it on your face. That’s why you’ve come down in the world—that’s why you live by yourself—that’s why you didn’t dare come out this afternoon—and that’s where you’ve known all those privations I never dreamed of. It’s no good telling lies.”

“Well, it’s true,” said Joyce. “And I ’ve paid the penalty for my folly ten times over. Forget all this, Annie, for God’s sake.”

“Go away!” she cried, walking faster. “I don’t want to see you again. Oh, to think of it makes me sick! Go away, do!”

But he followed her imploringly. He was at her mercy. “I don’t care what you think of me,” he said. “I will keep out of your way as much as you like. Only, a word from you would ruin me. Keep my story secret, like an honourable woman. I have done nothing to you.”

“Yes, you have!” she cried, stopping short and facing him. “You have dared to kiss me. Oh—a pretty fine gentleman you are—with your patronising superior ways—and I thinking myself an ignorant, common girl, not good enough for you! What were you? A pickpocket?”

“You abuse me as if I were one,” said Joyce, bitterly. “Good-night, Miss Stevens. I shall not molest you any further.” He motioned to her with his hand to pass on in front. She regarded him for a moment stonily, and then, with a short exclamation of disgust, swung round sharply and proceeded at a hurried pace down the dismal, ill-lighted street. Joyce watched her until she was swallowed up in the darkness, and had obtained sufficient start for him to follow in her footsteps without fear of overtaking her.

But as he walked along, the dread of her indignation seized him. If only he could say another word to her before the morning, he might secure her pity and her silence. The idea grew more and more insistent, until he could bear it no longer. He started off at a run, at first on the pavement of the quiet side street, and then in the roadway by the kerb of the busier thoroughfare into which it led, and regardless of jostling and oaths, continued his way, until he succeeded in catching her up just as she was inserting the latchkey into her door.

“Annie,” he cried, his chest heaving painfully from the exertion of running. “Promise me you won’t breathe a word of this to any one.”

She let herself in deliberately and stood in the dark passage.

“I ’ll promise nothing. I never want to set my eyes on you again!”

And then she slammed the door in his face.

He turned away sick at heart, and went to his own lodging. Resentment at her coarse anger, and speculation as to the motives of the sudden change from friendliness to hatred were things that did not come to him till afterwards. Sufficient for the night was the despair of the sleepless hours, the dread of the girl’s tongue, and the anguish of tottering hopes. He did not write to Yvonne. The little triumph of the evening seemed like a gay pagoda struck by lightning.