The Prelude to Adventure

omed voices of Mrs. Ridge, his bedmaker, and Miss Annett, her assistant. It

ase voice of Mrs. Ridge

Miss Annett. You won't

sive, "I should think

s window Carfax's hulking body cross the court. No, it was real enough, only it did not concern him. He watched it, as a spectator, indifferent, callous. There was a change in his life, but it was a change of another kind. In the strange consciousness that he now had of some vast and vital Presence, the temporal fact of the thing that he had done lost all importance. There was something that he had got to find, to discover. If-and th

ced in the sense of his fitness, in the movement of his muscles, in the splendid condition of h

oom, bright now with the morning sun, so that the blue bowls and the red t

o say prevented full-stops and commas from being of any use to her. Miss Annett was admirably suited as a companion, being long, thin and silent, and intended b

day it is with Miss Annett just breakin' one of your cups, sir, 'er 'ands bein' that cold and a cup bein'

look downcast. "I can

think it's wonderful that you break the things as s

rs. Ridge could be said to be afraid; she was proud of him and frightened

ith that Mr. Dune, because it puts you in practice, I can tell you, and a nice spoken gentleman 'e is and quiet-never does a thin

would at once admit everything; the other was that he would do his utmost, until he was accused, to lead his life exactly as though he were in no way concerned. He had now an odd assurance that it was not by his public condemnation that he was intended to work out the results of his act. Why was

to his

AR FA

always a beast of the lowest order. He was ruining a fellow here, taking his money, making him drink, doing for him; also ruining a girl in a tobacconist's shop. All this was no business of mine, but we had always loathed one another. I think when I hit him I wanted to kill him. I am not, in any way, sorry, except

He put the letter carefully in the pocket of his shirt. Then, suddenly, he was confronted with the risk. Suppose that he were t

urn. He felt as though, in the writing of it, he had com