she said.

"Very well," he answered, with a curious and almost shy boyish coldness.

"Not into the Park, Mater," he said, as they were starting.

"Why not? We always walk there. Where else should we go?"

"Anywhere--shopping--Regent Street."

"No, Horace, I've got a headache to-day. I want a quiet place."

He didn't say more. They set out, and Mrs. Errington took the precise
route they had followed the day before. She glanced rather sharply about
her as they walked. Presently they reached the seat on which the beggar
had been sitting just before he got up to follow them. Mrs. Errington
paused beside it.

"I'm tired. Let us sit down here," she said.

"No, Mater, not here."

"Really, Horace," Mrs. Errington said, "you are in an extraordinary mood
to-day. You have no regard for me. What is the matter with you?"

And she sat down on the seat. Horace remained standing.

"I shan't sit here," he said obstinately.

"Very well," Mrs. Errington replied.

She really began to look ill, but Horace was too much preoccupied with
his own feelings to notice it. There was something abominable to him in
his mother sitting calmly down to rest in the very place occupied a few
hours ago by the wretched creature who had, so Horace believed, been
driven to death by her refusal of charity. He felt sick with horror in
that neighbourhood, and he moved away, and stood staring across the
Serpentine. Presently Mrs. Errington called to him in a faint voice----

"Horace, come and give me your hand."

He turned, noticed her extreme pallor, and ran up.

"What's the row? Are you ill, Mater?"

"No. Help me up." He put out his hand. She got up slowly.

"We'll go home," he said. "You look awfully seedy."

"No; let us walk on."

In spite of his remonstrances she insisted on walking up and down at the
edge of the Serpentine for quite an hour. She appeared to be on the
look-out for somebody. Over and over again they passed the spot where
the beggar had drowned himself. Their feet trod over the ground on
which his dead body had been laid. Each time they reached it Horace felt
himself grow cold. Death is so terrible to the young. At last Mrs.
Errington stopped.

"I can't walk much more," she said.

"Then do let's go home now," Horace said.

She stood looking round her, searching the Park with her eyes.

"I suppose we must," she said slowly. Then she added, "We can come here
again to-morrow."

Horace was puzzled.

"What for? Why