“You have been wonderfully good to me,” he said. “I owe you everything. But I must go--all this has only made sure what I have been knowing this long time that I ought to do. I can't--I mustn't--depend on your charity any longer--it has been too long as it is. I must be on my own and then one day, when I have proved myself, I will come back to you.” “No--Peter, Boy--come with me now. I will show you wonderful things all over Europe; we will have adventures. There is gold in Cornwall in a place I know. There is a place in Germany where there is treasure--ze world is full of ze most wonderful things that I know and you and I--we two--Oh! ze times we all 'ave--” “No,” ... Peter drew back. “That is not my way. I am going to make my living here, in London--or die for it.” “No--you must not. You will succeed--you will grow fat and sleepy and ze good things of the world and ze many friends will kill your soul. I know it ... but come with me, first and we will 'ave adventures ... and _zen_ you shall write.” But Peter's face was set. The time for the new life had come. Up to this moment he had been passive, he had used his life as an instrument on which others might play. From henceforward his should be the active part. The crowds were pouring up the street on their homeward way. Bands were playing the soldiers back to the barracks. Soon the streets would have only the paper bags left to them for company. The little bookshop hung, with its misty shelves about the three men.... Somewhere in another room, a girl was staring with white set face and burning eyes in front of her, for her lover was dead and the world had died with him. After a little time amongst the second-hand novels Mr. Zanti sat, his great head buried in his hands, the tears trickling down through his fingers, and Herr Gottfried, motionless from behind his counter watched him in silent sympathy. Peter and Stephen had gone together. CHAPTER V A NARROW STREET I The bomb was, that evening, the dominant note of the occasion. Through the illuminated streets, the slowly surging crowds--inhuman in their abandon to the monotonous ebb and flow as of a sweeping river--the cries and laughter and shouting of songs, that note was above all. An eye-witness--a Mr. Frank Harris, butcher of 82 Cheapside--had his veracious account journalistically doctored. * * * * *