"Yes, Corporal Strangeways of the Northwest Mounted Police, but
Strangeways of the Oxford boat at one time. I fancied I knew you; you
rowed at seven for Corpus, and it was you who won that race."

"I and seven others," laughed Granger; "but what brings you up here at
this time?"

"We'll talk about that later. At present I'm hungry; I've hardly had a
meal since I left God's Voice."

"Then you're travelling in haste?"

"Yes, in haste."

Granger set to work to prepare a meal, while Strangeways talked to him
of the Cornmarket, the Turl, and the Hinkseys, running over the
familiar geography for the sheer pleasure of recalling kindly Oxford
names. Presently he asked him if he remembered the little maid who had
served in the river-inn of the King's Arms at Sanford. Granger had had
a summer love-affair with that same maid, as had many a young
water-man before and after him. One quiet Sunday evening, when her
fickle passion had reached its short-lived height, he had even been
allowed the felicity of accompanying her to vespers at the quaint old
Norman Church, which lay snuggled away in woods behind the Thames.
They had returned to the inn by a roundabout way, through the meadows
beneath the twilight, speaking all manner of intense things, and, very
wonderfully, believing both themselves and their sayings to be
sincere. When he had entered his skiff and pushed out from the bank,
she had called him back and royally permitted him to give her his
first and, as it proved, only kiss. But he had not known that, and had
rowed elated Oxfordwards between the hayfields, dreaming his ecstasy
on into the future--when it had already achieved its climax, and
slipped out of his life. Since then it had come to seem very simple
and absurd, as do all love affairs, however august, which are lived
down--for no love affair was ever outlived. So, because he had been
fond of her, he was glad to listen to Strangeways, even when he
related her newer conquests over more recent undergrads, and her later
romantic history. By all accounts she was a modern Helen of Troy,
uncontaminate, forever fair and forever juvenile.

And all the while he was listening, Granger was planning by what
means he might detain Strangeways, and hazarding what progress
Spurling had made by this time in his escape. "A life for a life," he
thought; "and Spurling once saved my life. Until I have cancelled that
debt, even though Mordaunt has been slain, I will stand by him."