and miserable now."

"And at the risk of being a little damper, I will come; it's ridiculous
to argue the point."

With all her boasted independence May was not sorry for Paul's escort
when she stepped out into the night. The rain was descending in a
steady down pour, the wind came sighing up the valley, and the river
swept on its way, lapping against the bark with a dreary, sobbing
sound. They walked on in silence side by side until May broke it with
an impatient laugh.

"The dreariness of the night has infected us both. You are not often
dull. You are always either amusing or interesting. Talk, please."

"I can't talk. I've not an idea in my head except that, if the river
gets much higher, there will be a flood, and no more Rudham! And
personally, I should not care much if it swept it away and me with it."

"You do yourself injustice; you are very interesting. Why this fit of
the blues? You are going to be ill, I expect; you looked rather ill
when you came in just now."

"Not a bit of it," said Paul, with a little laugh; "draggled and wet,
but not ill. Do you remember that you told me once, a year ago, that I
was isolating myself from my fellows? Then I felt as if I could defy
that isolation. To-day I have been conscious of it; Robinson Crusoe on
his desert island could not feel more utterly lonely. I have been
kicking against the pricks, wondering why I am condemned to a life and
a place which I hate."

"You have no business to complain of a solitude which you have created
yourself."

"Oh no; I blame no one."

"And you have Sally----"

"I _had_ Sally. She was my disciple and satellite; but now I shall
always be having to take care that I don't hurt her feelings. The
slippered ease of the old relationship is dead; I can't talk out to
her."

"But you can talk out to me as much as you like. I shan't agree with
you; but my faith, such as it is, is not new-born like Sally's. I wish
it were half as strong."

Only under cover of the dark would May have dared to say as much.

"No, I can't even talk to you; the friendship is dead too. That was
the ghost I saw this afternoon; it would have been a short-lived joy,
any way, for I hear you are going to leave Rudham."

"You are talking in riddles now!" cried May. "What should kill our
friendship? and where am I going to?"

"To Fairfield; so rumour says."

May stopped short in her walk, and Paul heard her breath coming
unevenly. When she s