Ronder sat in his study waiting for young Falk Brandon. The books smiled down upon him from their white shelves; because the spring evening was chill a fire glittered and sparkled and the deep blue curtains were drawn. Ronder was wearing brown kid slippers and a dark velvet smoking-jacket. As he lay back in the deep arm-chair, smoking an old and familiar briar, his chubby face was deeply contented. His eyes were almost closed; he was the very symbol of satisfied happy and kind-hearted prosperity.

He was really touched by young Falk's approach towards friendship. He had in him a very pleasant and happy vein of sentiment which he was only too delighted to exercise so long as no urgent demands were made upon it. Once or twice women and men younger than himself had made such urgent demands; with what a hurry, a scurry and a scamper had he then run from them!

But the more tranquil, easy and unexacting aspects of sentiment he enjoyed. He liked his heart to be warmed, he liked to feel that the pressure of his hand, the welcome of the eye, the smile of the lip were genuine in him and natural; he liked to put his hand through the arm of a young eager human being who was full of vitality and physical strength. He disliked so deeply sickness and decay; he despised them.

Falk was young, handsome and eager, something of a rebel--the greater compliment then that he should seek out Ronder. He was certainly the most attractive young man in Polchester and, although that was not perhaps saying very much, after all Ronder lived in Polchester and wished to share in the best of every side of its life.

There were, however, further, more actual reasons that Ronder should anticipate Falk's visit with deep interest. He had heard, of course, many rumours of Falk's indiscretions, rumours that naturally gained greatly in the telling, of how he had formed some disgraceful attachment for the daughter of a publican down in the river slums, that he drank, that he gambled, that he was the wickedest young man in Polchester, and that he would certainly break his father's heart.

It was this relation of the boy to his father that interested him most of all. He continued to remark to the little god who looked after his affairs and kept an eye upon him that the last thing that he wanted was to interfere in Brandon's family business, and yet to the same little god he could not but comment on the curious persistency with which that same business would thrust itself upon his interest. "If Brandon's wife, son, and general mÉnage will persist in involving themselves in absurd situations it's not my fault," he would say. But he was not exactly sorry that they should.

Indeed, to-night, in the warm security of his room, with all his plans advancing towards fulfillment, and life developing just as he would have it, he felt so kindly a pity towards Brandon that he was warm with the desire to do something for him, make him a present, or flatter his vanity, or give way publicly to him about some contested point that was of no particular importance.

When young Falk was ushered in by the maid-servant, Ronder, looking up at him, thought him the handsomest boy he'd ever seen. He felt ready to give him all the advice in the world, and it was with the most genuine warmth of heart that he jumped up, put his hand on his shoulder, found him tobacco, whisky and soda, and the easiest chair in the room.

It was apparent at once that the boy was worked up to the extremity of his possible endurance. Ronder felt instantly the drama that he brought with him, filling the room with it, charging every word and every movement with the implication of it.

He turned about in his chair, struck many matches, pulled desperately at his pipe, stared at Ronder with a curious mixture of shyness and eagerness that betrayed his youth and his sense of Ronder's importance. Ronder began by talking easily about nothing at all, a diversion for which he had an especial talent. Falk suddenly broke upon him:

"Look here. You don't care about that stuff--nor do I. I didn't come round to you for that. I want you to help me."

"I'll be very glad to," Ronder said, smiling. "If I can."

"Perhaps you can--perhaps you can't. I don't know you really, of course--I only have my idea of you. But you seem to me much older than I am. Do you know what I mean? Father's as young or younger and so are so many of the others. But you must have made your mind up about life. I want to know what you think of it."

"That's a tall order," said Ronder, smiling. "What one thinks of life! Well, one can't say all in a moment, you know."

And then, as though he had suddenly decided to take his companion seriously, his face was grave and his round shining eyes wide open.

Falk coloured. "Perhaps you think me impertinent," he said. "But I don't care a damn if you do. After all, isn't it an absurd thing that there isn't another soul in this town you could ask such a question of? And yet there's nothing else so important. A fellow's thought an impossible prig if he mentions such a thing. I expect I seem in a hurry too, but I can tell you I've been irritated for years by not being able to get at it--the truth, you know. Why we're here at all, whether there is some kind of a God somewhere or no. Of course you've got to pretend you think there is, but I want to know what you really think and I promise it shan't go a step farther. But most of all I want to know whether you don't think we're meant all of us to be free, and why being free should be the hardest thing of all."

"You must tell me one thing," said Ronder. "Is the impulse that brought you in to see me simply a general one, just because you are interested in life, or is there some immediate crisis that you have to settle? I ask that," he added, smiling gently, "because I've noticed that people don't as a rule worry very urgently about life unless they have to make up their minds about which turn in the road they're going to take."

Falk hesitated; then he said, speaking slowly, "Yes, there is something. It's what you'd call a crisis in my life, I suppose. It's been piling up for months--for years if you like. But I don't see why I need bother you with that--it's nobody's business but my own. Although I won't deny that things you say may influence me. You see, I felt the first moment I met you that you'd speak the truth, and speaking the truth seems to me more important than anything else in the world."

"But," said Ronder, "I don't want to influence you blindly. You've no right to ask me to advise you when I don't know what it is I am advising you about."

"Well, then," said Falk, "it's simply this--that I want to go up to London and live my own life. But I love my father--it would all be easy enough if I didn't--and he doesn't see things as I do. There are other things too-- it's all very complicated. But I don't want you to tell me about my own affairs! I just want you to say what you think this is all about, what we're here for anyway. You must have thought it all through and come out the other side. You look as though you had."

Ronder hesitated. He really wished that this had not occurred. He could defeat Brandon without being given this extra weapon. His impulse was to put the boy off with some evasion and so to dismiss him. But the temptation that was always so strong in him to manipulate the power placed in his hands was urging him; moreover, why should he not say what he thought about life? It was sincere enough. He had no shame of it....

"I couldn't advise you against your father's wishes," he said. "I'm very fond of your father. I have the highest opinion of him."

Falk moved uneasily in his chair: "You needn't advise me against him," he said; "you can't have a higher opinion of him than I have. I'm fonder of him than of any one in the world; I wouldn't be hesitating at all otherwise. And I tell you I don't want you to advise me on my particular case. It just interests me to know whether you believe in a God and whether you think life means anything. As soon as I saw you I said to myself, 'Now I'd like to know what he thinks.' That's all."

"Of course I believe in a God," said Ronder, "I wouldn't be a clergyman otherwise."

"Then if there's a God," said Falk quickly, "why does He let us down, make us feel that we must be free, and then make us feel that it's wrong to be free because, if we are, we hurt the people we're fond of? Do we live for ourselves or for others? Why isn't it easier to see what the right thing is?"

"If you want to know what I think about life," said Ronder, "it's just this--that we mustn't take ourselves too seriously, that we must work our utmost at the thing we're in, and give as little trouble to others as possible."

Falk nodded his head. "Yes, that's very simple. If you'll forgive my saying so, that's the sort of thing any one says to cover up what he really feels. That's not what you really feel. Anyway it accounts for simply nothing at all. If that's all there is in life----"

"I don't say that's all there is in life," interrupted Ronder softly, "I only say that that does for a start--for one's daily conduct I mean. But you've got to rid your head of illusions. Don't expect poetry and magic for ever round the corner. Don't dream of Utopias--they'll never come. Mind your own daily business."

"Play for safety, in fact," said Falk.

Ronder coloured a little. "Not at all. Take every kind of risk if you think your happiness depends upon it. You're going to serve the world best by getting what you want and resting contented in it. It's the discontented and disappointed who hang things up."

Falk smiled. "You're pushing on to me the kind of philosophy that I'd like to follow," he said. "I don't believe in it for a moment nor do I believe it's what you really think, but I think I'm ready to cheat myself if you give me encouragement enough. I don't want to do any one any harm, but I must come to a conclusion about life and then follow it so closely that I can never have any doubt about any course of action again. When I was a small boy the Cathedral used to terrify me and dominate me too. I believed in God then, of course, and I used to creep in and listen, expecting to hear Him speak. That tomb of the Black Bishop seemed to me the place where He'd most likely be, and I used to fancy sometimes that He did speak from the heart of that stone. But I daresay it was the old Bishop himself.

"Anyway, I determined long ago that the Cathedral has a life of its own, quite apart from any of us. It has more immortality in one stone of its nave than we have in all our bodies."

"Don't be too sure of that," Ronder said. "We have our immortality--a tiny flame, but I believe that it never dies. Beauty comes from it and dwells in it. We increase it or diminish it as we live."

"And yet," said Falk eagerly, "you were urging, just now, a doctrine of what, if you'll forgive my saying so, was nothing but selfishness. How do you reconcile that with immortality?"

Ronder laughed. "There have only been four doctrines in the history of the world," he answered, "and they are all Pursuits. One is the pursuit of Unselfishness. 'Little children, love one another. He that seeks to save his soul shall lose it.' The second is the opposite of the first-- Individualism. 'I am I. That is all I know, and I will seek out my own good always because that at least I can understand.' The third is the pursuit of God and Mysticism. 'Neither I matter nor my neighbour. I give up the world and every one and everything in it to find God.' And the fourth is the pursuit of Beauty. 'Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty. That is all we need to know.' Every man and woman alive or dead has chosen one of those four or a mixture of them. I would say that there is something in all of them, Charity, Individualism, Worship, Beauty. But finally, when all is said and done, we remain ourselves. It is our own life that we must lead, our own goal for which we are searching. At the end of everything we remain alone, of ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves. Life is, finally, a lonely journey to a lonely bourne, let us cheat ourselves as we may."

Ronder sat back in his chair, his eyes half closed. There was nothing that he enjoyed more than delivering his opinions about life to a fit audience --and by fit he meant intelligent and responsive. He liked to be truthful without taking risks, and he was always the audience rather than the speaker in company that might be dangerous. He almost loved Falk as he looked across at him and saw the effect that his words had made upon him. There was, Heaven knew, nothing very original in what he had said, but it had been apparently what the boy had wanted to hear.

He jumped up from his chair: "You're right," he said. "We've got to lead our own lives. I've known it all along. When I've shown them what I can do, then I'll come back to them. I love my father, you know, sir; I suppose some people here think him tiresome and self-opinionated, but he's like a boy, you always know where you are with him. He's no idea what deceit means. He looks on this Cathedral as his own idea, as though he'd built it almost, and of course that's dangerous. He'll have a shock one of these days and see that he's gone too far, just as the Black Bishop did. But he's a fine man; I don't believe any one knows how proud I am of him. And it's much better I should go my own way and earn my own living than hang around him, doing nothing--isn't it?"

At that direct appeal, at the eager gaze that Falk fixed upon him, something deep within Ronder stirred.

Should he not even now advise the boy to stay? One word just then might effect much. Falk trusted him. He was the only human being in Polchester to whom the boy perhaps had come. Years afterwards he was to look back to that moment, see it crystallised in memory, see the books, piled row upon row, gleam down upon him, see the blue curtain and hear the crackling fire...a crisis perhaps to himself as well as to Falk.

He went across to the boy and put his hands on his shoulders.

"Yes," he said, "I think it's better for you to go."

"And about God and Beauty?" Falk said, staring for a moment into Ronder's eyes, smiling shyly, and then turning away. "It's a long search, isn't it? But as long as there's something there, beyond life, and I know there is, the search is worth it." He looked rather wistfully at Ronder as though he expected him to confirm him again. But Ronder said nothing.

Falk went to the door: "Well, I must go. I'll show them that I was right to go my own way. I want father to be proud of me. This will shock him for a moment, but soon he'll see. I think you'll like to know, sir," he said, suddenly turning and holding out his hand, "that this little talk has meant a lot to me. It's just helped me to make up my mind."

When he had gone Ronder sat in his chair, motionless, for a while; he jumped up, went to the shelves, and found a book. Before he sat down again he said aloud, as though he were answering some accuser, "Well, I told him nothing, anyway."

Falk had, from the moment he left Ronder's door, his mind made up, and now that it was made up he wished to act as speedily as possible. And instantly there followed an appeal of the Town, so urgent and so poignant that he was taken by surprise. He had lived there most of his days and never seen it until now, but every step that he took soon haunted him. He made his plans decisively, irrevocably, but he found himself lingering at doors and at windows, peering over walls, hanging over the Pol bridge, waiting suddenly as though he expected some message was about to be given to him.

The town was humming with life those days. The May weather was lovely, softly blue with cool airs and little white clouds like swollen pin- cushions drifting lazily from point to point. The gardens were dazzling with their flowers, the Cathedral Green shone like glass, and every door- knob and brass knocker in the Precincts glittered under the sun.

The town was humming with the approaching Jubilee. It seemed itself to take an active part in the preparations, the old houses smiling to one another at the plans that they overheard, and the birds, of whom there were a vast number, flying from wall to wall, from garden to garden, from chimney to chimney, with the exciting news that they had gathered.

Every shop in the High Street seemed to whisper to Falk as he passed: "Surely you are not going to leave us. We can offer you such charming things. We've never been so gay in our lives before as we are going to be now."

Even the human beings in the place seemed to be nicer to him than they had ever been before. They had never, perhaps, been very nice to him, regarding him with a quite definite disapproval even when he was a little boy, because he would go his own way and showed them that he didn't care what they thought of him.

Now, suddenly, they were making up to him. Mrs. Combermere, surrounded with dogs, stopped him in the High Street and, in a deep bass voice, asked him why it was so long since he had been to see her, and then slapped him on the shoulder with her heavy gloved hand. That silly woman, Julia Preston, met him in Bennett's book shop and asked him to help her to choose a book of poems for a friend.

"Something that shall be both True and Beautiful, Mr. Brandon," she said. "There's so little real Beauty in our lives, don't you think?" Little Betty Callender caught him up in Orange Street and chattered to him about her painting, and that pompous Bentinck-Major insisted on his going into the Conservative Club with him, where he met old McKenzie and older Forrester, and had to listen to their golfing achievements.

It may have been simply that every one in the town was beside and above himself over the Jubilee excitements--but it made it very hard for Falk. Nothing to the hardness of everything at home. Here at the last moment, when it was too late to change or alter anything, every room, every old piece of furniture seemed to appeal to him with some especial claim. For ten years he had had the same bedroom, an old low-ceilinged room with queer bulges in the wall, a crooked fireplace and a slanting floor. For years now he had had a wall-paper with an ever-recurrent scene of a church tower, a snowy hill, and a large crimson robin. The robins were faded, and the snowy hill a dingy yellow. There were School groups and Oxford groups on the walls, and the book-case near the door had his old school prizes and Henty and a set of the Waverley Novels with dark red covers and paper labels.

Hardest of all to leave was the view from the window overlooking the Cathedral Green and the Cathedral. That window had been connected with every incident of his childhood. He had leant out of it when he had felt sick from eating too much, he had gone to it when his eyes were brimming with hot rebellious tears after some scene with his father, he had known ecstatic joys gazing from it on the first day of his return from school, he had thrown things out of it on the heads of unsuspecting strangers, he had gone to it in strange moods of poetry and romance, and watched the moon like a plate of dull and beaten gold sail above the Cathedral towers, he had sat behind it listening to the organ like a muffled giant whispering to be liberated from grey, confining walls, he had looked out of it on a still golden evening when the stars were silver buttons in the sky after a meeting with Annie; he went to it and gazed, heart-sick, across the Green now when he was about to bid fare-well to it for ever.

Heart-sick but resolved, it seemed strange to him that after months of irresolution his mind should now be so firmly composed. He seemed even, prophetically, to foretell the future. What had reassured him he did not know, but for himself he knew that he was taking the right step. For himself and for Annie--outside that, it was as though a dark cloud was coming up enveloping all that he was leaving behind. He could not tell how he knew, but he felt as though he were fleeing from the city of Polchester, and were being driven forward on his flight by powers far stronger than he could control.

He fancied, as he looked out of his window, that the Cathedral also was aware and, aloof, immortal, waited the inevitable hour.

Coming straight upon his final arrangements with Annie, his reconciliation with his father was ironic. So deeply here were his real affections stirred that he could not consider deliberately his approaching treachery; nevertheless he did not for a moment contemplate withdrawal from it. It was as though two personalities were now in active movement within him, the one old, belonging to the town, to his father, to his own youth, the other new, belonging to Annie, to the future, to ambition, to the challenge of life itself. With every hour the first was moving away from him, reluctantly, stirring the other self by his withdrawal but inevitably moving, never, never to return.

He came, late in the afternoon, into the study and found his father, balanced on the top of a small ladder, putting straight "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem," a rather faded copy of Benjamin Haydon's picture that had irritated Falk since his earliest youth by a kind of false theatricality that inhabited it.

Falk paused at the door, caught up by a sudden admiration of his father. He had his coat off, and as he bent forward to adjust the cord the vigour and symmetry of his body was magnificently emphasized. The thick strong legs pressed against the black cloth of his trousers, the fine rounded thighs, the broad back almost bursting the shiny stuff of the waistcoat, the fine neck and the round curly head, these denied age and decay. He was growing perhaps a little stout, the neck was a little too thick for the collar, but the balance and energy and strength of the figure belonged to a man as young as Falk himself....

At the sound of the door closing he turned, and at once the lined forehead, the mouth a little slack, gave the man his age, but Falk was to remember that first picture for the rest of his life with a strange poignancy and deeply affectionate pathos.

They had not met alone since their quarrel; their British horror of any scene forbade the slightest allusion to it. Brandon climbed down from his ladder and came, smiling, across to his son.

At his happy times, when he was at ease with himself and the world, he had the confident gaiety of a child; he was at ease now. He put his hand through Falk's arm and drew him across to the table by the window.

"I've had a headache," he said, rather as a child might complain to his elder, "for two days, and now it's suddenly gone. I never used to have headaches. But I've been irritated lately by some of the tomfoolery that's been going on. Don't tell your mother; I haven't said a word to her; but what do you take when you have a headache?"

"I don't think I ever have them," said Falk.

"I'm not going to stuff myself up with all their medicines and things. I've never taken medicine in my life if I was strong enough to prevent them giving it to me, and I'm not going to start it now."

"Father," Falk said very earnestly, "don't let yourself get so easily irritated. You usedn't to be. Everybody finds things go badly sometimes. It's bad for you to allow yourself to be worried. Everything's all right and going to be all right." (The hypocrite that he felt himself as he said this!)

"You know that every one thinks the world of you here. Don't take things too seriously."

Brandon nodded his head.

"You're quite right, Falk. It's very sensible of you to mention it, my boy. I usedn't to lose my temper as I do. I must keep control of myself better. But when a lot of chattering idiots start gabbling about things that they understand as much about as----"

"Yes, I know," said Falk, putting his hand upon his father's arm. "But let them talk. They'll soon find their level."

"Yes, and then there's your mother," went on Brandon. "I'm bothered about her. Have you noticed anything odd about her this last week or two?"

That his father should begin to worry about his mother was certainly astonishing enough! Certainly the first time in all these years that Brandon had spoken of her.

"Mother? No; in what way?"

"She's not herself. She's not happy. She's worrying about something."

"You're worrying, father," Falk said, "that's what's the matter. She's just the same. You've been allowing yourself to worry about everything. Mother's all right." And didn't he know, in his own secret heart, that she wasn't?

Brandon shook his head. "You may he right. All the same----"

Falk said slowly: "Father, what would you say if I went up to London?" This was a close approach to the subject of their quarrel of the other evening.

"When? What for?"

"Oh, at once--to get something to do."

"No, not now. After the summer we might talk of it."

He spoke with utter decision, as he had always done to Falk, as though he were five years old and could naturally know nothing about life.

"But, father--don't you think it's bad for me, hanging round here doing nothing?"

Brandon got up, went across to the little ladder, hesitated a moment, then climbed up.

"I've had this picture twenty years," he said, "and it's never hung straight yet."

"No, but, father," said Falk, coming across to him, "I'm a man now, not a boy. I can't hang about any longer--I can't really."

"We'll talk about it in the autumn," said Brandon, humming "Onward, Christian Soldiers," as he always did, a little out of tune.

"I've got to earn my own living, haven't I?" said Falk.

"There!" said Brandon, stepping back a little, so that he nearly overbalanced. "That's better. But it won't stay like that for five minutes. It never does."

He climbed down again, his face rosy with his exertions. "You leave it to me, Falk," he said, nodding his head. "I've got plans for you."

A sudden sense of the contrast between Ronder and his father smote Falk. His father! What an infant! How helpless against that other! Moved by the strangest mixture of tenderness, regret, pity, he did what he had never in all his life before dreamed of doing, what he would have died of shame for doing, had any one else been there--put his hands on his father's shoulders and kissed him lightly on his cheek.

He laughed as he did so, to carry off his embarrassment.

"I don't hold myself bound, you know, father," he said. "I shall go off just when I want to."

But Brandon was too deeply confused by his son's action to hear the words. He felt a strange, most idiotic impulse to hug his son; to place himself well out of danger, he moved back to the window, humming "Onward, Christian Soldiers."

He looked out upon the Green. "There are two of those choir-boys on the grass again," he said. "If Ryle doesn't keep them in better order, I'll let him know what I think of him. He's always promising and never does anything."

The last talk of their lives alone together was ended.

He had made all his plans. He had decided that on the day of escape he would walk over to Salis Coombe station, a matter of some two miles; there he would be joined by Annie, whose aunt lived near there, and to whom she could go on a visit the evening before. They would catch the slow four o'clock train to Drymouth and then meet the express that reached London at midnight. He would go to an Oxford friend who lived in St. John's Wood, and he and Annie would be married as soon as possible. Beyond everything else he wanted this marriage to take place quickly; once that was done he was Annie's protector, so long as she should need him. She should be free as she pleased, but she would have some one to whom she might go, some one who could legally provide for her and would see that she came to no harm.

The thing that he feared most was lest any ill should come to her through the fact of his caring for her; he felt that he could let her go for ever the very day after his marriage, so that he knew that she would never come to harm. A certain defiant courage in her, mingled with her ignorance and simplicity, made his protection of her the first thing in his life. As to living, his Oxford friend was concerned with various literary projects, having a little money of his own, and much self-confidence and ambition.

He and Falk had already, at Oxford, edited a little paper together, and Falk had been promised some reader's work in connection with one of the younger publishing houses. In after years he looked back in amazement that he should have ventured on the great London attack with so slender a supply of ammunition--but now, looking forward in Polchester, that question of future livelihood seemed the very smallest of his problems.

Perhaps, deepest of all, something fiercely democratic in him longed for the moment when he might make his public proclamation of his defiance of class.

He meant to set off, simply as he was; they could send his things after him. If he indulged in any pictures of the future, he did, perhaps, see himself returning to Polchester in a year's time or so, as the editor of the most remarkable of London's new periodicals, received by his father with enthusiasm, and even Annie admitted into the family with approval. Of course, they could not return here to live...it would be only a visit.... At that sudden vision of Annie and his father face to face, that vision faded; no, this was the end of the old life. He must face that, set his shoulders square to it, steel his heart to it....

That last luncheon was the strangest meal that he had ever known. So strange because it was so usual--so ordinary! Roast chicken and apple tart; his mother sitting at the end of the table, watching, as she had watched through so many years, that everything went right, her little, tight, expressionless face, the mouth set to give the right answers to the right questions, her eyes veiled.... His mind flew back to that strange talk in the dark room across the candle-lit table. She had been hysterical that night, over-tired, had not known what she was saying. Well, she could never leave his father now, now when he was gone. His flight settled that.

"What are you doing this afternoon, Falk?"

"Why, mother?"

"I only wondered. I have to go to the Deanery about this Jubilee committee. I thought you might walk up there with me. About four."

"I don't think I'll be back in time, mother; I'm going out Salis Coombe way to see a fellow."

He saw Joan, looking so pretty, sitting opposite to him. How she had grown lately! Putting her hair up made her seem almost a woman. But what a child in the grown-up dress with the high puffed sleeves, her baby-face laughing at him over the high stiff collar; a pretty dress, though, that dark blue stuff with the white stripes.... Why had he never considered Joan? She had never meant anything to him at all. Now, when he was going, it seemed to him suddenly that he might have made a friend of her during all these years. She was a good girl, kind, good-natured, jolly.

She, too, was talking about the Jubilee--about some committee that she was on and some flags that they were making. How exciting to them all the Jubilee was, and how unimportant to him!

Some book she was talking about. "...the new woman at the Library is so nice. She let me have it at once. It's The Massarenes, mother, darling, by Ouida. The girls say it's lovely."

"I've heard of it, dear. Mrs. Sampson was talking about it. She says it's not a nice book at all. I don't think father would like you to read it."

"Oh, you don't mind, father, do you?"

"What's that?"

The Archdeacon was in a good humour. He loved apple tart.

"The Massarenes, by Ouida."

"Trashy novels. Why don't you girls ever read anything but novels?" and so on.

The little china clock with the blue mandarin on the mantelpiece struck half past two. He must be going. He threw a last look round the room as though he were desperately committing everything to memory--the shabby, comfortable chairs, the Landseer "Dignity and Impudence," the warm, blue carpet, the round silver biscuit-tin on the sideboard.

"Well, I must be getting along."

"You'll be back to dinner, Falk dear, won't you? It's early to-night. Quarter past seven. Father has a meeting."

He looked at them all. His father was sitting back in his chair, a satisfied man.

"Yes, I'll be back," he said, and went out.

It seemed to him incredible that departure should be so simple. When you are taking the most momentous step of your life, surely there should be dragons in the way! Here were no dragons. As he went down the High Street people smiled at him and waved hands. The town sparkled under the afternoon sun. It was market-day, and the old fruit-woman under the green umbrella, the toy-man with the clockwork monkeys, the flower-stalls and the vegetable-sellers, all these were here; in the centre of the square, sheep and pigs were penned. Dogs were barking, stout farmers in corduroy breeches walked about arguing and expectorating, and suddenly, above all the clamour and bustle, the Cathedral chimes struck the hour.

He hastened then, striding up Orange Street, past the church and the monument on the hill, through hedges thick with flowers, until he struck off into the Drymouth Road. With every step that he took he stirred child memories. He reached the signpost that pointed to Drymouth, to Clinton St. Mary, to Polchester. This was the landmark that he used to reach with his nurse on his walks. Further than this she, a stout, puffing woman, would never go. He had known that a little way on there was Rocket Wood, a place beloved by him ever since they had driven there for a picnic in the jingle, and he had found it all spotted gold under the fir-trees, thick with moss and yellow with primroses. How many fights with his nurse he had had over that! he clinging to the signpost and screaming that he would go on to the Wood, she picking him up at last and carrying him back down the road.

He went on into the wood now and found it again spotted with gold, although it was too late for primroses. It was all soft and dark with pillars of purple light that struck through the fretted blue, and the dark shadows of the leaves. All hushed and no living thing--save the hesitating patter of some bird among the fir-cones. He struck through the wood and came out on to the Common. You could smell the sea finely here--a true Glebeshire smell, fresh and salt, full of sea-pinks and the westerly gales. On the top of the Common he paused and looked back. He knew that from here you had your last view of the Cathedral.

Often in his school holidays he had walked out here to get that view. He had it now in its full glory. When he was a boy it had seemed to him that the Cathedral was like a giant lying down behind the hill and leaning his face on the hill-side. So it looked now, its towers like ears, the great East window shining, a stupendous eye, out over the bending wind-driven country. The sun flashed upon it, and the towers rose grey and pearl- coloured to heaven. Mightily it looked across the expanse of the moor, staring away and beyond Falk's little body into some vast distance, wrapped in its own great dream, secure in its mighty memories, intent upon its secret purposes.

Indifferent to man, strong upon its rock, hiding in its heart the answer to all the questions that tortured man's existence--and yet, perhaps, aware of man's immortality, scornful of him for making so slight a use of that--but admiring him, too, for the tenacity of his courage and the undying resurgence of his hope.

Falk, a black dot against the sweep of sky and the curve of the dark soil, vanished from the horizon.