re breathing sweet
refinements, cradled in an ancient home, such as he had left for ever.

The sentimentality of the Fatherland seemed to have crept into his soul;
a divinely sweet, sad melody was throbbing in his brain. How glad he was
he had met Peter again!

From a neighbouring steeple came a harsh, resonant clang, "One."

It roused him from his dream. He shivered a little, closed the door,
bolted it and put up the chain, and turned, half sighing, to take up his
bedroom candle again. Then his heart stood still for a moment. A
figure--a girl's figure--was coming towards him from the kitchen stairs.
As she came into the dim light he saw that it was merely Mary Ann.

She looked half drowsed. Her cap was off, her hair tangled loosely over
her forehead. In her disarray she looked prettier than he had ever
remembered her. There was something provoking about the large dreamy
eyes, the red lips that parted at the unexpected sight of him.

"Good heavens!" he cried. "Not gone to bed yet?"

"No, sir. I had to stay up to wash up a lot of crockery. The
second-floor front had some friends to supper late. Missus says she
won't stand it again."

"Poor thing!" He patted her soft cheek--it grew hot and rosy under his
fingers, but was not withdrawn. Mary Ann made no sign of resentment. In
his mood of tenderness to all creation his rough words to her recurred to
him.

"You mustn't mind what I said about the matches," he murmured. "When I
am in a bad temper I say anything. Remember now for the future, will
you?"

"Yessir."

Her face--its blushes flickered over strangely by the
candle-light--seemed to look up at him invitingly.

"That's a good girl." And bending down he kissed her on the lips.

"Good night," he murmured.

Mary Ann made some startled, gurgling sound in reply.

Five minutes afterwards Lancelot was in bed, denouncing himself as a
vulgar beast.

"I must have drunk too much whisky," he said to himself angrily. "Good
heavens. Fancy sinking to Mary Ann. If Peter had only seen---- There
was infinitely more poetry in that red-cheeked _Maedchen_, and yet I
never---- It is true--there is something sordid about the atmosphere
that subtly permeates you, that drags you down to it! Mary Ann! A
transpontine drudge! whose lips are fresh from the coalman's and the
butcher's. Phaugh!"

The fancy seized hold of his imagination. He could not shake it off, he
could not sleep till he had got out of