kling to himself.

What a splendid, encouraging night it had been! Those last and most
important speakers were if anything even more enthusiastic about all
his novels. It was nice to get into touch with those for whom you
wrote and know that they are pleased. It took away the great drawback
of a writer's job as compared with the vocalist's or actor's; that you
never heard the clapping. (He did not, of course, think about the
hisses.)

Wouldn't Helena be glad to hear it all!

He had forgotten by now that there had been any trouble as to this
evening's fixture, remembering only how delighted she was always, bless
her, with his least success. Imagine, now, if he were going back to
lonely digs--or Ruth!

By this time he had reached the crossroads whence the house is visible,
and now his bubbling pleasure suddenly went flat. He could see their
bedroom windows from here, and there was no light.... He had told her
not to sit up, certainly, but he had naturally thought that she would
read in bed and keep awake to hear about the evening. Of course he was
a little late; but still, he thought resentfully, she might----

Then he remembered.

How feminine! She wished to spite him for deserting her in favour of
the Kit Kats! She was asleep, or anyhow pretending, and thought to
punish him, like comic-paper husbands, by making him fumble his way
into bed in a considerate darkness!

He smiled at her simplicity. How like her! She knew nothing about
anything. He'd soon show her how childish she had been. He meant to
turn the light on and bang drawers and then--it really would be rather
comic to see her, like the child she was, pretending to awake. In this
grim mood of resolution, creditable to a bullied sex, he turned into
his gate and as he moved slowly out into the dark garden from under the
thick ivy arch, was conscious of a male figure not three feet away.

Instantly his trained imagination nimbly leapt from point to point. He
understood now why there was no light up there; he could fancy the poor
frightened girl listening to a scraping noise; the useless, snoring
servants; possibly a struggle, she was so brave----

God, if anything had happened to her!

In a second flash he had seen, for the first time possibly, how much
she meant to him. We moan our tragedies and scarcely notice blessings
till they go.

And whilst his brain sped along those twin paths, his arm sprang out
and gripped the fellow by the t