eir perfume, and closed his eyes. But
instead of the domestic vision he expected, the face of the little Welsh
soldier, hare-eyed, shadowy, pinched and dark and pitiful, started up
with such disturbing vividness that he opened his eyes again at once.
Curse! The fellow almost haunted one! Where would he be now poor little
devil!--lying in his cell, thinking--thinking of his wife! Feeling
suddenly morbid, Mr. Bosengate arrested the swing and stood up.
Absurd!--all his well-being and mood of warm anticipation had deserted
him! 'A d---d world!' he thought. 'Such a lot of misery! Why should I
have to sit in judgment on that poor beggar, and condemn him?' He
moved up on to the terrace and walked briskly, to rid himself of this
disturbance before going in. 'That commercial traveller chap,' he
thought, 'the rest of those fellows--they see nothing!' And, abruptly
turning up the three stone steps, he entered the conservatory, locked
it, passed into the billiard room, and drank his barley water. One of
the pictures was hanging crooked; he went up to put it straight. Still
life. Grapes and apples, and--lobsters! They struck him as odd for the
first time. Why lobsters? The whole picture seemed dead and oily. He
turned off the light, and went upstairs, passed his wife's door, into
his own room, and undressed. Clothed in his pyjamas he opened the door
between the rooms. By the light coming from his own he could see her
dark head on the pillow. Was she asleep? No--not asleep, certainly. The
moment of fruition had come; the crowning of his pride and pleasure in
his home. But he continued to stand there. He had suddenly no pride,
no pleasure, no desire; nothing but a sort of dull resentment against
everything. He turned back; shut the door, and slipping between the
heavy curtains and his open window, stood looking out at the night.
'Full of misery!' he thought. 'Full of d---d misery!'

II

Filing into the jury box next morning, Mr. Bosengate collided slightly
with a short juryman, whose square figure and square head of stiff
yellow-red hair he had only vaguely noticed the day before. The man
looked angry, and Mr. Bosengate thought: 'An ill-bred dog, that!'

He sat down quickly, and, to avoid further recognition of his fellows,
gazed in front of him. His appearance on Saturdays was always military,
by reason of the route march of his Volunteer Corps in the afternoon.
Gentleman Fox, who belonged to the corps too, was also looking s