The Dark House

oth bands. Robert's eyes followed her with anguish. It wasn't happiness any more. He might have been a condemned man counting the last minutes of his l

y between the benches shouting: "Signed photographs of the c'lebrities, twopence

obert call

t his boredom became a cynical amusement. There were

t any rate-and so on, with "Gloria Moretti" scrawled nobly across every one of them. Robert bought them all. He stuffed them into his coat pockets, into his trouser pockets. He dropped them.

d, ain't 'e, t

l, it was only the things they had done, not what they had felt-the frightful pain that was an undreamed-of happiness, and the joy that tore the heart out of you, and the wonder of a new discovery. You lost yourself, You

horrid thing, as though a skeleton came to life and jiggled its bones and mouthed at you

oy ran after him with it and stuck it

be losing yo

re pilgrims' souls surging at the entrance of Paradise. In a little while they would see her. Not that they would know what they saw. They would not be able to understand how great, how brave and splendid she was. In their blindness of heart they would prefer the ugly littl

ands till even now they were hot and swollen. She had not known, and he would not have had

nding on the dim outskirts of the crowd, the photographs that he hadn't been able to fit into his pockets held fast in his burning hands, he saw how impossible, how even wrong and faithless that decision had been. So long as a shilling remained to him he had to go, he had to take his place among her loyal

d and he was out of breath, and his blue eyes had a queer, strained look, as though they had wanted t

hen I went round to your place-and Miss Forsyth said she didn't know and sh

eart had begun to beat thickly

, I

ome out a minute-I'm in an awful hole-there's goi

were looking at him. His voice was squeaky and broke

her as she passed, he would have to peer between peopled heads, and she would be a far-off vision to him. And yet, oddly enough, it

it? What'

he comes home to-night. I didn't know he'd kept count-just the sort of beastly thing he woul

ee days of peril, of desperate subterfuge and feverish alternations between joy and anguish. Now, in the mysterious twilight, the most terrible, as the most wonderful things seemed not merely possible but

rstanding pressure Cosgrave began to cry, shaking from head

d tell lies. He's always so j-jolly glad to let into me or mother-and when he finds out we've been stuffing him he-he goes mad-and preaches for days and days. Mother's a brick. She gave me a shilling t

s step, the horrible boom of his father's voice, "You're a born liar, Christine-you're making my son

be frightened too. It wasn't

do something. How m

wouldn't notice that, though-I thought p'r'aps-oh, I don't know wh

rance had a sort of halo round it like the moon before it is going to rain. There was an empty, sinking feeling in his stomach,

," he heard himself saying

d it. And she was only a mere girl. How much more this noble, wonderful woman? It was better than clapping. Somewhere at the back of his mind was the idea that he offered her a more gallant tribute, and that one day she would know that he had stuck up for Cosgrave for her sake, and, remote and godlike though she was, be

hem back, can't you?

hion of his years. He cut an elfish caper. He rubbed him

ve to see his beastly face! What luck-not having a father, like you. I say, though, is tha

t answered carelessly. "I

, Rufus tagging val

u'll say I was at your pla

rat

you. You don't mind tell

t answered austerel

ess emptiness. He wished agonizedly that Arabesque had gone mad and bolted and that he had stopped him and saved his rider's life, dying gloriously and at

could hardly see each other. He heard Cosgrave breathing heavily thr

me. I say-I do lo

ne had overheard them the shame would have haunted them to the

tten, stupid things lik

had been torn from him.

vertake him-above all so that he could not hear t