Bright, he'd come and bring a friend. And Ransome, in a weak moment, had
consented to be brought.

The Service would be at eight, and would last, say, till nine. Half past
nine was the very earliest hour he could fix for his appointment with
Miss Usher.

For he had seen her. She had risen up before him, to his amazement, on
that Sunday evening, as he turned out of his own door on his way to
supper with Wauchope at Clapham. He had walked with her for five
minutes, wheeling his bicycle in the gutter, while they settled how and
where they were to meet.

She was living in Wandsworth, lodging in St. Ann's Terrace, near to
Winny Dymond, so that Winny could take care of her. She had got another
situation at Starker's, in the millinery department.

He proposed that he should meet her at closing-time to-morrow, and she
smiled at him and said she didn't mind; but Winny would be there (he had
forgotten Winny). Then he suggested next Saturday afternoon or Sunday
about three; and she said she really couldn't say. Saturday and Sunday
were such a long way off, and things might be different now that she was
in the millinery. And she smiled again, and in such a manner that he had
a vision, a horrible vision, of other fellows crowding round her on
Saturdays and Sundays. He more than suspected that this was
"cock-a-tree"; but it made him desperate, so that he said, "Well--how
about to-night?"

Well--_to-night_ she'd promised Winny she'd be good and go to church.

If he had been madder, if he'd been more set on it, he would have gone
off with her that minute; he would have persuaded her to give up church;
he himself would have broken his promise to old Wauchope. But he did
none of these things, and his abstention was the sign and measure of his
coolness, of his sanity. He only said, as any cool and sane young man
might say: How about after church? And if he called when he got back
from Clapham? He wouldn't be a minute later than half past nine.

And Violet had said: Oh, well--she didn't know about calling. You see,
she only had one room. And he had reckoned with that difficulty; for
Winny Dymond only had one room which she shared with Maudie. By calling,
he'd meant, of course, on the doorstep, to take her for a walk.

But Violet, for some reason, didn't care about the doorstep. She'd
rather, if he didn't mind, that he met her somewhere out of doors.

And so they had been drawn into an assignation at the old elm tree by
the Cause