I am very sorry indeed if my invitation for Saturday offended you. I am glad to think your reason for declining it is that you had another engagement to fulfil. In the circumstances, is it too impertinent of me if I invite you to spend the Bank Holiday on the Surrey Hills? I know the district pretty well, and am sure you will enjoy the fine scenery as well as the invigorating air. There is a motor omnibus service as far as Reigate, and we could get from there to a number of interesting spots. Hoping you will be able to come with me. Believe me, Yours sincerely, J. A. HOBBS. She smiled wanly upon the drearily angular handwriting. In rummaging in her hand-bag she had come across the Rev. Elkin Broodbank’s visiting card, left by him that morning, and she caught sight of some writing on the back which she had previously overlooked. “I find you not in,” the Rev. Elkin had written, in his finicky handwriting and pseudo-Carlylean prose style, “so I leave this. Will you have tea with me on Sunday? I have old MSS. church rubric to show you: also good booklet on Oxford movement.--Yrs., E. B.” Also upon this she smiled wanly.... Chelmsford.... Oh, what have I done with my life? she cried to herself in a moment of sudden horror. What have I to show for all these years of toil and stress? Is there anything of all that I have ever had which has lasted? I am twenty-four years old, and my youth is over. I have had dreams, I have had ambitions, I have had golden opportunities and been near success. But what have I to show? Have I any hold on life which death would not loose? Am I deep set in the heart of any friend, man or woman, in the world? Whatever happens to me, does it matter to anyone save myself? No, no, and therefore I am going to Barhanger. I would go to Barhanger if it cost me pain for the rest of my life.... At the junction station midway between Chelmsford and Colchester she got out. On the opposite platform the train for Holleshont was waiting. Small and feeble it looked beside the great express, but there was an air of sturdy independence about it, and especially about its single track curving away over the hills into the dim distance. Catherine breathed the country air with avidity: she entered a compartment and leaned out of the window as the express rolled slowly out of the other platform. As it vanished into the north-east the station became full of broken silences and staccato sounds. Glorious! she murmured, as the sun warmed her cheeks and the wind wafted to her the scent of pansies growing on the embankment near by. And then suddenly, as if it had a fit of divine inspiration, the train moved off....