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He was the first to go," said Mrs Crowther, her face taking that fixed serious expression, betraying the inward attitude which in another woman would have meant tears.

"I mean, my good friend," he said, "that if I asked you to chuck it all and go round the world with me you'd see me damned first." Crowther's eyes dropped gravely to the job in hand. "Say when!" he said. Piers made a restless movement. "Oh, that's enough! Strong drink is not my weakness. Why don't you answer my question?" "I didn't know you asked one," said Crowther.

Piers swung round with an impatient gesture and went to the window. He threw it wide, and the distant roar of traffic filled the quiet room like the breaking of the sea. After a distinct pause Crowther followed him. They stood together gazing out over the dim wilderness of many roofs and chimneys to where the crude glare of an advertisement lit up the night sky.

The sight of Piers soothing the little girl's distress had comforted her subtly. She felt that his mood had softened. "Won't you go too?" said Crowther, as she joined him. "Please don't stay on my account! I am used to being alone, and I can find my own way back." "Oh no!" she said. "I had better come with you. I shan't be wanted now."

The words were spoken, and after them came silence such a silence as could be felt. Once the hands that gripped Crowther's seemed about to slacken, and then in a moment they tightened again as the hands of a drowning man clinging to a spar. Crowther attempted nothing in the way of sympathy or consolation. He merely stood ready.

"Say good-night to her, Crowther, and let her go! We will smoke in the garden." There was finality in his tone, its lightness notwithstanding. Again there came to Avery the impulse to rebel, and again instinctively she caught it back. She held out her hand to Crowther. "I am dismissed then," she said. "Good-night!" His smile answered hers. He looked regretful, but very kindly.

You say you're not going to settle in England?" "I am not," said Crowther, and again he was looking out ahead of him with eyes that spanned the far distance. "No; I'm going back again to the old haunts. There's a thundering lot to do there. It's more than a one-man job. But, please God, I'll do what I can. I know I can do a little. It's a hell of a place, sonny.

But all thought of Crowther faded from her mind when she found herself once more in that eerie, tapestry-hung bedroom. The place had been lighted with candles, but they only seemed to emphasize the gloom.

Most of that day I spent in bed; I didn't feel myself, yet it was still a great satisfaction to me that I had got the better of that brute. On Monday at twelve I kept the appointment in Dean Street. Crowther hadn't come in, and I sat for a few minutes quaking. When he turned up, he was quite cheerful. "Look here!" he said, "will you sell me that picture for thirty pounds?" "What then?" I asked.

He freed himself from Crowther's hold and turned away. Once more he opened the window to the roar of London's life; and so standing, with his back to Crowther, he spoke again jerkily, with obvious effort. "Do you remember telling me that something would turn up? Well, it has. I'm waiting to see what will come of it.