ng to
support herself and three children on the large sum of one hundred and
fifty pounds a year. Her husband died in my arms while we were
consolidating some ground we had won." He took the envelope from her
hand. "Thank you; I am sorry to have had to trouble you."

He walked towards the door, and when he got to it, he paused and looked
back. Joan Devereux was standing motionless, staring out of the window.
Vane dropped his letter into the box in the hall, and went up the stairs
to his room.

CHAPTER VI

There was no objection to Vane going to London, it transpired. He had
merely to write his name in a book, and he was then issued a half-fare
voucher. No one even asked him his religion, which seemed to point to
slackness somewhere.

It was with feelings the reverse of pleasant that Vane got into the
first-class carriage one morning four days after he had written to Mrs.
Vernon. She would be glad to see him, she had written in reply, and
she was grateful to him for taking the trouble to come. Thursday
afternoon would be most convenient; she was out the other days, and on
Sundays she had to look after the children. . . .

Vane opened the magazine on his knees and stared idly at the pictures.
In the far corner of the carriage two expansive looking gentlemen were
engaged in an animated conversation, interrupted momentarily by his
entrance. In fact they had seemed to regard his intrusion rather in
the light of a personal affront. Their general appearance was not
prepossessing, and Vane having paused in the doorway, and stared them
both in turn out of countenance, had been amply rewarded by hearing
himself described as an impertinent young puppy.

He felt in his blackest and most pugilistic mood that morning. As a
general rule he was the most peaceful of men; but at times, some strain
inherited from a remote ancestor who, if he disliked a man's face hit
it hard with a club, resurrected itself in him. There had been the
celebrated occasion in the Promenade at the Empire, a few months before
the war, when a man standing in front of him had failed to remove his
hat during the playing of "The King." It was an opera hat, and Vane
removed it for him and shut it up. The owner turned round just in time
to see it hit the curtain, whence it fell with a thud into the
orchestra. . . . Quite inexcusable, but the fight that followed was
all that man could wish for. The two of them, with a large
chucker-out, h