d
out? Why was there no one in the room? And why had no one answered
him?

He did not know and really he did not care, and, indeed, it was better
that the affair should be left in vague and incomplete outline. It was
probably commonplace enough, had one only known, and sordid too,
perhaps. But to-night was just such a night as that other. He would
go to the Cove and find his romance where he had left it twenty years
ago. It was the hour in Pendragon when shops are closing and young men
and maidens walk out. There were a great many people in the street;
girls with white, tired faces, young men with bright ties and a
self-assertive air--a type of person new to Pendragon since Harry's
day. The young man who served you respectfully, almost timidly, behind
the counter was now self-assertive, taking the middle of the street
with a flourish of his cane. Fragments of conversation came to Harry's
ears--

"Mother being out I thought as 'ow I might venture--not but what she'd
kick up a rare old fuss----"

"So I told 'er it weren't no business of 'ers and the sooner she caught
on to the idea the better for all parties, seein' as 'ow----"

"Well, I never did! and you told 'im that, did yer? I always said
you'd some pluck if you really wanted to----"

A gramophone from an open window up the street shrieked the alluring
refrain of "She's a different girl again," and a man who had
established himself at the corner under the protecting glare of two
hissing gas-jets urged on the company present an immediate acceptance
of his stupendous offer. "Gold watches for 'alf a crown--positively
for one evening in order to clear--all above board. Solid gold and
cheap at a sovereign."

The plunge into the cool depths of the winding little path that led
down to the Cove was delicious. Oh! the contrast of it! The noise and
ugly self-assertion of the town, flinging its gas-jets against the moon
and covering the roll of the sea with the shriek of the gramophone. He
crossed through the turnstile at the bend of the road and passed up the
hill that led to the Cove. At a bend the view of the sea came to him,
the white moonlight lying, a path of dancing shining silver, on the
grey sweep of the sea. A wind was blowing, turning the grey into
sudden points of white--like ghostly hands rising for a moment suddenly
from immensity and then sinking silently again, their prayers
unanswered.

As he passed up the hill he was aware of somethi