ich he had looked
so many nights at this hour.

Across the viaduct there came a blaze of streaming light, a serpentlike
trail, a faintly heard whistle--the Scottish Express on its way
southward toward London. His eyes followed it out of sight. He found
himself thinking of the passengers who would wake the next morning in
London. He felt himself suddenly acutely conscious of his isolation. Was
there not something almost monastic in the seclusion which had become a
passion with Stephen, and which had its grip, too, upon him--a waste of
life, a burying of talents?

He rose to his feet. The half-formed purpose of weeks held him now,
definite and secure. He knew that this pilgrimage of his to the hilltop,
his rapt contemplation of the little panorama which had become so dear
to him, was in a sense valedictory.

* * * * *

After all, two more months passed before the end came, and it came then
without a moment's warning. It was a little past midday when John drove
slowly through the streets of Market Ketton in his high dogcart,
exchanging salutations right and left with the tradespeople, with
farmers brought into town by the market, with acquaintances of all sorts
and conditions. More than one young woman from the shop-windows or the
pavements ventured to smile at him, and the few greetings he received
from the wives and daughters of his neighbors were as gracious as they
could possibly be made. John almost smiled once, in the act of raising
his hat, as he realized how completely the whole charm of the world, for
him, seemed to lie in one woman's eyes.

At the crossways, where he should have turned up to the inn, he paused
while a motor-car passed. It contained a woman, who was talking to her
host. She was not in the least like Louise, and yet instinctively he
knew that she was of the same world. The perfection of her white-serge
costume, her hat so smartly worn, the half-insolent smile, the little
gesture with which she raised her hand--something about her unlocked the
floodgates.

Market Ketton had seemed well enough a few minutes ago. John had felt a
healthy appetite for his midday meal, and a certain interest concerning
a deal of barley upon which he was about to engage. And now another
world had him in its grip. He flicked the mare with his whip, turned
away from the inn, and galloped up to the station, keeping pace with the
train whose whistle he had heard. Standing outside was a lo