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“Well I don't see what I can do for you, Mr. Robinson; but I don't mind speaking to Miss Geard.” These words were automatically jerked out of him, like peas shaken out of a bag. But at this moment they passed into the church and Red Robinson and his exaggerated cockney speech became for Sam's mind far less important than the dust now being raised by Red's mother as the old woman swrept her brush about between the pews with her long black skirt pinned up above her grey woolen petticoat.

For there before his eyes was Nell Zoyland! The girl was lying back in one of the pewTs nearest to the font in an attitude not of piety nor of peace, but of apathetic weariness. One of her arms was thrown over the back of the pew7. Her face was so shaded by her hat that in the dusk of that interior it was a mere white blur. She did not look unhappy. No one would have taken her for a tragic figure. No one, on the other hand, would have taken her for a care-free visitor to Glastonbury. She might have been a sister of Sam's, some tired daughter of the priest of this very church, resting after a long country walk.

“Are you ready, Mother?” he heard Red Robinson exclaim. “ 'Urry now, for I wants my tie! Say good-night to Jesus and hunpin yerself quick!”

Sam wTent straight to the girl's side and greeted her in a whisper. She caught np her hand quick to her throat and gave a little gasping cry. Sam was so excited that he did not modulate his voice as he greeted her while she sprang to her feet and faced him. “Has he gone to see Philip?” he asked eagerly.

Nell Zoyland nodded, clutching three paper parcels which she held, tight against her bosom, and not offering him her hand.

“Is he going to Wookey Hole?”

Again she nodded without a word.

He did lower his voice now to a low whisper that she could hardly catch. But well did she know the drift of that desperate question! Had she gone back to him—since that night? Her eyes assumed a strange, weary, indifferent look, in that dim light, and they seemed to leave his face and gaze into the far distance. “Have . . . you . . . gone . . . back ... to hirn?” he repeated with - almost brutal insistence. For the third time she nodded; and then, moving her feet a little, as if the ground was slippery beneath her, she straightened her body and looked him full in the face; and he thought as she did so that there was a reproachful flash in her eyes.

“Come . . . this way,” he said, pulling at her jacket. They moved out of reach of the ears of Red Robinson and his mother; and Sam soon found that he had led her quite unconsciously to the great empty sarcophagus bearing the initials /. A. Here they stood side by side, she with her body pressed against the outside edge of the stone, he with his fingers clutching its inside rim.

“How soon is he going to Wookey Hole?”

“In two or three days,” she answered, looking at hirn with an inscrutable expression. “By Saturday,” she murmured, “he's certain to be gone.” She paused and then added humbly, poking the end of her umbrella into a crevice between two stones, “I can't understand how either of you can put up with such a weak, uncertain creature as I am. I was telling William that, just now, all the way from Wick Hollow to Maidencroft Lane. I know I shall bring a curse upon you both! What I deserve is that you both should go off and leave me alone! Oh, Sammy, Sammy, how much nicer men really are, at bottom, than women!”

Sam sighed. “I'd chance all the badness you could call up? Nellie,” he said, “if only I could get you to myself.”

It was her turn to sigh at this. "Why didn't you just carry me off, Sam dearest, that evening on Queen's Sedgemoor? We'd have managed somehow. I'm not a fool; and you've got such strong arms!

Sam drew a desp breath; so deep that it shook him from head to foot. He felt a leap in the pit of his stomach, as if a fish had risen there. He felt the blood throb above his cheek-bones. “We . . . might . . . still ... do it, little Nell,” he stammered huskily.

“It's too late now my dearest,” she said.

“Why is it?” he groaned.

“Because . . . because he's made me give myself to him . . . as I've never done . . . before this.”

Sam was silent, pondering in his brain the inscrutable twists and turns of women's hearts. He thought to himself, “What am I to believe? That day we went to Pomparles Bridge and looked at the dace in those pools, and she told me about Arthur's sword, she made me believe he had ravished her the first day they met; and now she says this! Do women delight to make themselves out victims? She first says this and then that ... I cannot tell what the truth is!”

“But you still love me, Nell?” he pleaded. “You haven't turned against me? You haven't gone over to him completely?”

“I shall always love you beyond all else in the world,” she said. He now led her towards the altar and they seated themselves in the very front pew of all and before their pew was an open space of time-worn floor, carrying several quite illegible and absolutely flat tombstones. Beyond these were the altar rails. But the girl kept her eyes fixed on the ground and ceased not to draw her hand up and down the polished edge of the seat. “But to give myself to you after giving myself to him as I've done since that night has something”—she spoke even more slowly now, but never seemed to hesitate for a word—“something about it that I can't bear.” She lifted her eyes from the ground and fixed them shyly and humbly upon Sam's troubled face. “I wouldn't blame any woman,” she went on, “who lived with two men, if one was her earthly friend and the other her ideal friend. But you and Will—you mustn't mind my saying it, Sam!—are both earthly friends. It was because of that . . . that I . . . that I made Will sleep alone. I wanted to belong to you altogether”

Sam spoke hurriedly and eagerly. “But I must come over and see you when he's away. It'll be madness, Nell, to let such a chance go.”

A spasm of anger crossed her face. “Chances, Sam Dekker? You talk of chances? Why didn't you carry me off when you had the 'chance'? No, no! A girl isn't a bottle of wine for a man to lock up in a cupboard, to take a sip from whenever he wants to! Will's a genuine man anyway in these things. He doesn't wait for a 'chance.' He goes right ahead and takes risks.” She stood erect before him, her parcels pressed against her waist, her umbrella clutched crosswise against her bosom.

Her electric flash of anger communicated itself to him in a second and he too got up upon his feet. “If you feel like that,” he grumbled sulkily, “perhaps the best thing would be for me to give up altogether going out to see you.”

He gave a quick glance round the darkening church. But the stone coffin of Joseph of Arimathea lay undisturbed, a vague blur of insubstantial whiteness in the gathering dusk, and the Robinsons, both mother and son, had disappeared. “I never thought a time would come,” he said fiercely, “that we should have a chance like this, only to throw it away! Have you forgotten everything we've done together, and where we've been together? Have you forgotten that reed-hut on Splott's Moor? Have you forgotten Hartlake Railway Bridge? Have you forgotten that withy-bed at Westholme and the Palace Barn at Pilton?”

“I never thought,” she said, “that you would ever come to speak of such things in such a tone! I've been a fool to treat you as one of the few men that a girl could trust not to behave like a cad!” This word “cad” she brought out with vibrant relish like a pet dagger from a hidden sheath. She glowed in her indignation to see the twitch of his poor, funny chin as she plunged it in.

“I only spoke of those places to remind you of things,” he retorted with flashing eyes. “What you've done in going back to him when you belonged to me was far worse than talking of our little things. It was a kind of ... a kind of . . . well! I won't say that to you. But you know what I mean! You've never put him out of your heart—never!”

“How can you say that to me after everything?” she interjected.

“Because that's what you're like! Because when you went back to him you were acting like a whore” (Fve done it now, he thought. I've dropped the last straw on the heap by calling her that!) “Where does he want you to meet him? Can't I take you anywhere?” he said in a toneless mechanical voice. He took her hand. He repeated this hopeless formula. His lips seemed to have gone dry. He dropped her limp fingers, but she held him back for a second by the look on her face.

“You've . . . made . . . me . . . very . . . happy . . . Sam,” she whispered, while her eyes brimmed with tears. Sam ought to have had the wit to realise at this moment that had he swallowed his pride and changed his tone all would have been well. Apparently a man can call his love a whore and be forgiven! But he was at once too aggrieved and too simple-minded to take advantage of the tears that wTere now pouring down her face.

“Good-bye,” he repeated doggedly; “good-bye, Nell.”

A little later that evening, Red Robinson sat talking to his mother and Sally Jones in Mrs. Robinson's kitchen in an alley in Bove Town, a district of Glastonbury situated south of Old Wells Road and Edmund Hill Lane. Red was questioning Sally about the tea-party at the Geards', while his mother, in a clean dress, a clean lace collar, a clean blue apron, was preparing supper. “Why do you torment poor Sal so grievous, sonny?” protested the old lady. “You'll be the death of me with your hinsurrec-tions. List to a hold 'ooman, Sal, and leave not the paths of God's 'oly Word, Lot of good me son's Tarty' will be to 'im, with 'is Rooshian Spies when 'is ole Mother be dead and gone! And this Crummie Geard 'ee pines for! Your mother and me, Sal, have known Crummie Geard, and Bloody Johnny 'er dad too, since she were a tot in harms. Could Crummie dish up a nice tighsty dish 'o liver and 'am and fried tighties such as ye'U tighst in a minute? Not on your little loife!”

“But, Mother,” protested Red Robinson, “Crummie's dad is a rich man now. Since I 'eard of that I ain't gone near ”er. I 'as me own pride, Mother; and dahn't yer forget it!"

“Pride be 'anged!” cried the old woman, banging his supper-plate down in front of him and pouring water into the empty frying-pan, “you and 'er were keeping company; or I dunno what helse it were!”

“Well, anyway,” went on Red, hungrily beginning to eat his supper, “whether I get Crummie or not, Crummie's promised to 'arst 'er dad—and she can twist the old boy round her little finger—to hinvest 'is cash in 'elping us bankrupt this Crow concern. She says he told the Almighty 'Imself at family prayers that Crow was 'eading for ruin. He 'ates Crow, 'ee must 'ate Crow, because of his filling the town with factories; whereas Bloody Johnny wants to preach to the visitors; and visitors don't like factories. With a little of Geard's cash to back us up we'll mike the brute 'owl and maybe get the Town to tike over his concern. That's the idea anyway they've got at 'eadquarters.”

“But didn't you hear what I said?” put in Sally Jones. “Don't I keep telling you he's going to employ Crow's cousin? Crow's cousin be a tidy lad and a nice-spoken gentleman too; and old man Geard be goin' to hire he to bring a girt Fair into Tor Field with a grand Roman Circus and a Golden-Jerusalem Theayter and a 'normous Guy Fawkes Pope, and more o' they gipoos and For-tune-Tellers than have been seen since the King cut off Abbot Whiting's head!” Sally's cheeks flamed and her eyes glittered as she described these wonders.

Red Robinson spat into the stove. “Don't yer make no mistake, Baby Sal,” he said; “there won't be no Fair in Glastonbury in our time except the regular Autumn one.”

“Did Mr. Geard really talk like that?” enquired Mrs. Robinson, as she removed her son's plate and substituted another with a plump piece of pudding thereon. “There's no telling what a man will do, who's been poor, when he grows rich. Common folk like that ain't no notion how to spend money. It tikes the real gentry to spend money as it ought to be spended.”

“You shut yer hold mouth, Mother!” cried Red with a chuckle. It was the cause of endless pleasantries between these two that the revolutionary ideas of the man were countered by the inflexible Toryism of the woman.

“Don't you go on. then, putting these crazy notions into Sal's mind. Don't you *eed 'im. Sally, me gurl. Red's not been as I've 'a been, 'ousekeeper to the Bishop of Bath and Wells what was a Lord—rest his sweet soul!—in's own right, seeing 'ee was uncle-born to the Marquis of P.”

Its it really true, Sirs. Robinson,“ asked Sally timidly, ”that Mr. Zoyland, out to Queen's Sedgemoor, be thik Markises wicked by-blow?" The two women, the old one and the young one, pulled their kitchen chairs closer to each other; while an identical expression of complacent awe animated their faces.

“That's what IVe 'a 'eered from folks wThat*do know, Sal. 'Tis true I've never arst Mr. Zoyland 'isself. JTis a thing a gent like that—as I knows from my hexperience with 'is Lordship—be apt to be ticklish about. Not that in 'igh society, Sal, them by-blows be rare. They be common as hidiots be with us. There haint no great family, from on ?igh down, what 'asn't got 'en, Sal. Tis nature with they to have *en.”

By this time, in surprisingly few gulps, Red Robinson had dispatched his pudding. He now pushed back his plate and rising to his feet proceeded to light his pipe. That done, he took down his woolen scarf from one nail and his cap from another. “Don't yer sit up for me, Mother,” he said. “ 'Tis quarterly meeting tonight; and the Comrades from Wells and Wookey wTill be there and high'm the one delegated for the chief haddress.”

“I'll stay and help Mrs. Robinson wash up,” said Sally brightly. She made no move, however, to rise from her chair. She was clearly anxious to satisfy at one and the same time her natural kindness of heart and her longing to hear more about the Marquis of P.'s by-bIow\

Red was on the point of laying his hand on the door-handle when the door itself opened from without. It opened with the peculiar impetus that inrushing children give, and no fewer than four lively youngsters precipitated themselves into the room. Sally did not rise from her chair nowT; for the leader of this little gang was her brother Jackie. Jackie was accompanied by Nelly Morgan, a wild, dishevelled little girl of eight. Sis was ten, as old as Jackie himself, and an incorruptible devotee of Jackie's; but being a heavily built and heavily witted child and burdened, furthermore, by the care of her brother Bert, an infant of five, who in placidity and appearance resembled a giant mushroom, Sis was outplayed, outrun, outdared, outjumped, outclimbed, outfought, outpassioned by Nelly Morgan, in spite of her advantage over Nelly of two whole years. Nelly's mother was a charwoman and was always at work; which gave the little girl an independence from parental control envied by all the rest. Jackie had Sally to order him about, in addition to their mother; and the little Coles, although orphans, had a very active and formidable grandmother. Nelly Morgan had no one; for her charwoman-mother, although an incredibly good worker during the day, had the peculiarity, indeed the unusual gift, of being able to drink gin with no bodily ill-effect every night until she was completely fuddled Every day she would rise again by five o'clock; get her own and Nelly's breakfast, and go off cheerfully to her laborious work. She never uttered an unkind word to Nelly; far less ever struck her. But on the other hand she was wont to fall into a sentimental trance, as soon as she had washed up after supper, from which she never emerged again that evening. During this trance she would shed silent tears, sigh repeatedly, and talk in mumbling tones of Nelly's dead father; but Nelly herself became to her mother at these times as if she were totally invisible, Inaudible, and non-existent. For a little girl of eight to become non-existent to her only relation every single day of her life at seven onclock was an experience likely to have a noticeable effect; and Nelly's nature got steadily more and more self-absorbed and more and more eccentric. Though still only eight, the child had the intelligence of a girl of eleven; and on the few occasions when even the bold Jackie showed the white feather, Nelly—lieutenant of this obber band—played the devil with all strategy and all prudence. Bert Cole—that titanic mushroom—was at once awed and entranced by Nelly, who, in Sis's occasional absences, dragged him, pushed him, carried him, transported him, upon undertakings of fearful excitement. Bert never cried, never laughed, never smiled, and very rarely uttered a word; but, although the youngest of the robber band, he could not be called the least interested, for of all the people in Glastonbury, including even Mr. Wollop, the draper, who had been three times Mayor, none—I say none—contemplated the Dream of Life with a more concentrated gusto. A little bewildered, but not, even then, profoundly disturbed, when Nelly Morgan insisted on carrying his enormous weight upon her slim back, Bert Cole surveyed the panorama of existence with an unpossessive, grave-eyed relish that would have put Diogenes himself to shame.