the eighteenpenny
lot. He could not hope to enjoy Miss Harden's society for more than
three weeks at the outside. He only enjoyed it at all through an
accident too extraordinary, too fantastic to occur again. Between him
and her there stood the barrier of the counter. The barrier itself was
not insuperable: he might get over the counter, so might Miss Harden;
but there were other things that she never could get over. Though in
some ways he was all right, in others, again, he was not--he could see
very well that he was not--what Miss Harden would call a gentleman. He
was, through that abominable nervousness of his, an impossible person,
hopelessly, irredeemably involved in social solecisms. Or if not
impossible, he was, at any rate, highly improbable.

Perceiving all this, he was still unable to perceive the meaning of
his insight and his misery. He did not know, and there was nobody to
tell him, that this emptiness of his was the emptiness created by the
forerunners and servants of Love, who sweep and purify the
death-chamber where a soul has died and another soul is waiting to be
born. For in the house of Love there is only one chamber for birth and
for dying; and into that clean, unfurnished place the soul enters
unattended and endures its agony alone. There is no Mother-soul to
bear for it the birth-pains of the new life.

But Mr. Rickman was young, and youth's healthy instinct urged him to
vigorous exercise as the best means of shaking off his misery. He
crossed the road that runs along the top of Harcombe Hill and made for
the cliffs in a south-easterly direction across the fields. He then
kept along the coast-line, dipping into Harcombe valley, climbing
again to Easton Down. Here the coast was upheaved into terraces of
grey limestone, topped by a layer of sand riddled with rabbit holes.
Before one of these two young hawks were watching, perched on a
projecting boulder. So intent was their gaze and they so motionless
that the air seemed to stand still and wait for the sweep of their
wings. Mr. Rickman, whom youth made reckless, lay flat on his stomach
and peered over the edge of the cliff. He was fascinated, breathlessly
absorbed. He pressed the turf a little closer in his eagerness, and so
loosened a large stone that rolled down, starting a cataract of sand
and rubble. He had just time to throw himself back sideways, as the
hollow fringe of turf gave way and plunged down the cliff-side. So far
from taking his e