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shoulders, and his stubby hands, and I stood there, pulled this way and that. He said five hundred pounds, and Fay said five hundred pounds. He was offering it, and she was going to everlasting smash if she didn’t get it. Then prison—three years of it—a perfectly damnable thought. And then … Not much use being free to starve. I was pulled this way and that.
    I opened my mouth to speak. The thing I was going to say never got said. All at once I knew I couldn’t do it.
    I said “No,” and turned on my heel and went out.

IX
    The blood was pounding in my ears, and I felt as if I had just pulled myself back on the edge of something frightful. I don’t know what made me feel like that. I couldn’t see or hear for a moment. I went blundering along the path and barged into a tree. At the same moment I heard my name called:
    â€œFairfax!”
    It was the man I had been talking to, and he called a second time.
    â€œFairfax!”
    I turned round. I had really only gone a pace or two. He was standing in the doorway holding up the lantern in front of him. As I turned, some one made a sound, a queer inarticulate sound of pain or distress. It seemed to come from the darkness behind him.
    â€œWhat is it?” I asked.
    â€œYou’re in too much of a hurry. Come back and talk things out.”
    â€œNo use,” I said. “I’ve made up my mind.”
    He turned half round and set the lamp on the table so that the dark side was between the light and the door. I saw all the left-hand side of the bare room in a yellow glow. He left the hut and came forward.
    â€œSome one else wants to talk to you,” he said. “You can come along to the car when you’ve finished.” And with that he went past me and disappeared round the bend.
    After a moment’s hesitation I went back to the hut. I was very curious to see the other person—the some one else who had sighed in the darkness, and who wanted to speak to me. I went up to the door and looked in. Half the room was light, and half was dark. In the dark half some one was standing—a woman, in what looked like a black cloak and veil. The minute I moved she snatched up the lantern and turned the light on to my face. I don’t know anything that makes you feel such a perfect fool as being stared at like that by some one you can’t see. She took her time over it too, and just as I was beginning to feel like smashing something, she put the light down on the edge of the table and came across with her hand out.
    â€œHow do you do, Car?” she said.
    I just stood there like a stock, for I was clean knocked out of time. She had on some sort of close cap with a black veil that covered her face and went round her neck like a scarf, but the minute she opened her mouth I knew her. It was Anna Lang.
    Well, I never liked Anna, and there were reasons why both of us should find it awkward to meet. I hoped she didn’t know as much about the reasons as I did—I couldn’t believe she’d have come here to meet me if she did. I hoped with all my heart she didn’t know that Uncle John had tried to bucket me into marrying her. I wished myself a thousand miles away, and yet, extraordinary as it may seem, one bit of me was pleased to see her. For one thing, when you’ve lived right away from your own people and your own pals for three years, it feels good to meet one of them again—it seems to bridge the gap a bit. And for another thing, I thought perhaps she might talk about Isobel; because, of course, they’re near neighbors, and it isn’t as if Isobel and I had even been engaged or anything like that, so I thought she might just happen to mention her. I didn’t think all these things one after another as I’ve written them, but they were all there in my mind at once.
    I stood there, and Anna’s hand dropped down.
    â€œDon’t you know me, Car?”
    Her voice is one of the