h
the single purpose of a man mastered by love, and the desperate instinct
of a reckless temperament which gambled with life, never looking beyond
the next throw.

He retained sufficient caution to refrain from going to his father's house
in Richmond when he reached London. His father's parting words lingered
unpleasantly in his mind to serve as a warning against the folly of that
course. The same unusual prudence compelled him to leap out of a taxi-cab
as soon as he had leapt into it. For himself he did not care, but he had
to be careful for Sisily's sake. So he clambered on top of a 'bus with his
suit case. The same sobering feeling of responsibility directed his choice
of an hotel when he descended from the vehicle into the seething streets.
He chose a quiet small place off Charing Cross, and booked a room. After a
bath and some lunch he went out to a neighbouring bookstall and bought a
railway time-table. The next train to Charleswood left Charing Cross in
less than half an hour. He walked across to the station, purchased a
ticket, and took his seat. In a few minutes the train started.

Now that he was actually on the way of putting his idea to the test his
former doubts assailed him again with renewed force, but he refused to
listen to them. He told himself that a dying woman's idea was not likely
to be wrong, and that he would find Sisily at Charleswood. She was sure to
be there, because she had nowhere else to go. So he reasoned, or sought to
reason, until the train slowed down at the station which held the solution
of his hopes and fears.

It was a small wayside station at which he alighted--a mere hamlet set in
the slumberous calm of English rural scenery, passed by express trains
with a roar of derision by day and contemptuously winking tail-lights at
night. On the dark green background of the distant heights an eruption of
new red bungalows threatened to spread and destroy the beauty of
Charleswood at no remote date. But at present the sylvan charm of the spot
was unspoiled. Its meadows and fields seemed to lie happily unconscious of
the contagion flaming on the billowy hills.

The porter who emerged from a kind of wooden kennel and clattered up to
Charles to collect his ticket, stared hard when the young man asked if
Mrs. Pursill lived at Charleswood. He appeared to give the matter deep
thought before nodding affirmatively, and accompanied him to the station
entrance to point out an old house lying behind