green--."

Wallace's voice sank with the keen memory of that shame. "I
pretended not to hear," he said. "Well, then Carnaby suddenly
called me a young liar and disputed with me when I said the thing
was true. I said I knew where to find the green door, could lead
them all there in ten minutes. Carnaby became outrageously
virtuous, and said I'd have to--and bear out my words or suffer.
Did you ever have Carnaby twist your arm? Then perhaps you'll
understand how it went with me. I swore my story was true. There
was nobody in the school then to save a chap from Carnaby though
Crawshaw put in a word or so. Carnaby had got his game. I grew
excited and red-eared, and a little frightened, I behaved
altogether like a silly little chap, and the outcome of it all was
that instead of starting alone for my enchanted garden, I led the
way presently--cheeks flushed, ears hot, eyes smarting, and my soul
one burning misery and shame--for a party of six mocking, curious
and threatening school-fellows.

"We never found the white wall and the green door . . ."

"You mean?--"

"I mean I couldn't find it. I would have found it if I could.

"And afterwards when I could go alone I couldn't find it. I
never found it. I seem now to have been always looking for it
through my school-boy days, but I've never come upon it again."

"Did the fellows--make it disagreeable?"

"Beastly . . . . . Carnaby held a council over me for wanton
lying. I remember how I sneaked home and upstairs to hide the
marks of my blubbering. But when I cried myself to sleep at last
it wasn't for Carnaby, but for the garden, for the beautiful
afternoon I had hoped for, for the sweet friendly women and the
waiting playfellows and the game I had hoped to learn again, that
beautiful forgotten game . . . . .

"I believed firmly that if I had not told-- . . . . . I had
bad times after that--crying at night and wool-gathering by day.
For two terms I slackened and had bad reports. Do you remember?
Of course you would! It was _you_--your beating me in mathematics
that brought me back to the grind again."

III

For a time my friend stared silently into the red heart of the
fire. Then he said: "I never saw it again until I was seventeen.

"It leapt upon me for the third time--as I was driving to
Paddington on my way to Oxford and a scholarship. I had just one
momentary glimpse. I was leaning over the apron of my hansom
smoking a cigarette, a