ould present each with a sixpence.

"Poor little devils," and her voice was very soft. "What a life to
look forward to, Derek--what a hideous existence. . . ."

"It's all they've ever been brought up to." He put sixpence into each
little grubby paw, and smiled down at the awestruck faces. "Go and
spend it all on sweets," he told them, "and be really, wonderfully,
happily sick for once in your lives. . . ."

And then at last they turned a corner, and in front of them stretched
the Downs. On their left the grim, frowning prison stood sombre and
apparently lifeless, and as Joan passed it she gave a little shudder.

"Oh! Boy," she cried, "isn't it impossible to get away from the
suffering and the rottenness--even for a moment?" She shook herself as
if to cast off the mood, and stretched out her arms to the open hills.
"I'm sorry," she said briefly. "Come into the big spaces and tell me
what you want to say. . . ."

For a while they walked on over the clean-cut turf and the wind from
the sea swept through the gorse and the rustling grasses, and kissed
them, and passed on.

"There is a hayrick, I see, girl o' mine," said Vane. "Let's go and
sit under it. And in defiance of all laws and regulations we will
there smoke a cigarette."

They reached the sheltered side of it, and Vane threw down his coat on
the ground for her to sit on.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" she whispered, and he drew her into
his arms and kissed her. Then he made her sit down, and arranged the
coat around her shoulders.

"You come in too," she ordered. "There's plenty of room for
both. . . ."

And so with his arm around her waist, and his cheek touching hers they
sat for awhile in silence.

Then suddenly Vane spoke. "Grey girl--I'm going away to-day."

"Going away?" She echoed the words and stared at him incredulously.
"But . . . but . . . I thought. . . ."

"So did I," he returned quietly. "When I came down here yesterday I
had only one thought in my mind--and that was to make you give up
Baxter. I wanted it from purely selfish reasons; I wanted it because I
wanted you myself. . . ."

"And don't you now?" Her voice was wondering.

"More--infinitely more--than I did before. But there's one thing I
want even more than that--your happiness." He was staring steadily
over the great stretch of open country to where Crowborough lay in the
purple distance. "When you came to me last night, little Joan, I
thought I shoul