a little, said:

"I say, do buck up; we're going to start at half-past nine."

"We're going to Berry Head, old chap; you must come!"

Ashurst thought: 'Come! Impossible. I shall be getting things and going
back.' He looked at Stella. She said quickly:

"Do come!"

Sabina chimed in:

"It'll be no fun without you."

Freda got up and stood behind his chair.

"You've got to come, or else I'll pull your hair!"

Ashurst thought: 'Well--one day more--to think it over! One day more!'
And he said:

"All right! You needn't tweak my mane!"

"Hurrah!"

At the station he wrote a second telegram to the farm, and then tore it
up; he could not have explained why. From Brixham they drove in a very
little wagonette. There, squeezed between Sabina and Freda, with his
knees touching Stella's, they played "Up, Jenkins "; and the gloom he
was feeling gave way to frolic. In this one day more to think it over,
he did not want to think! They ran races, wrestled, paddled--for to-day
nobody wanted to bathe--they sang catches, played games, and ate all
they had brought. The little girls fell asleep against him on the way
back, and his knees still touched Stella's in the narrow wagonette. It
seemed incredible that thirty hours ago he had never set eyes on any of
those three flaxen heads. In the train he talked to Stella of poetry,
discovering her favourites, and telling her his own with a pleasing
sense of superiority; till suddenly she said, rather low:

"Phil says you don't believe in a future life, Frank. I think that's
dreadful."

Disconcerted, Ashurst muttered:

"I don't either believe or not believe--I simply don't know."

She said quickly:

"I couldn't bear that. What would be the use of living?"

Watching the frown of those pretty oblique brows, Ashurst answered:

"I don't believe in believing things because a one wants to."

"But why should one wish to live again, if one isn't going to?"

And she looked full at him.

He did not want to hurt her, but an itch to dominate pushed him on to
say:

"While one's alive one naturally wants to go on living for ever; that's
part of being alive. But it probably isn't anything more."

"Don't you believe in the Bible at all, then?"

Ashurst thought: 'Now I shall really hurt her!'

"I believe in the Sermon on the Mount, because it's beautiful and good
for all time."

"But don't you believe Christ was divine?"

He shook his head.

She turned her face quickly to the w