Richmond, also, was deserted. The emigrants had passed on over the river or southwards to Petersham and so into Surrey. "Well!" said Eileen, wiping her oil-blackened hands on a bunch of cotton waste, "that job's done. We've fairly drawn the plug of the cistern now. And how are we going to get back?" "We'll find a couple of bicycles somewhere here," said Thrale. It had been a clear day, and there was a suggestion of frost in the air. The sun was setting very red and full behind the bare trees across the river. Save for the gurgle and hiss of the eddying flood, everything was very still. The little launch which had served them so well, and bore the marks of its great adventure in broken rails and bruised sides, was run aground by the side of the bridge. Thrale was standing in the road, but Eileen still sat by her engine. "I hate to leave the launch," she said, after a long pause. "We can come back and fetch her up when the flood goes down," returned Thrale. "We've done pretty well, the three of us." "Yes, the three of us," he echoed. "It has been great fun," sighed Eileen. Thrale did not reply. He was thinking himself back into the past. He saw a street in Melbourne on a burning December evening, and the figure of a gaily-clad little brunette who spoke purest cockney and asked him why he looked so glum. "We ain't goin' to a funeral," she had said. Yet afterwards he had believed that something had been buried that night. He had faced his own passion and the sight of it had disgusted him. He had seen the shadow of a demon who might master him, and he had grappled with it; he believed that he had slain and buried lust in Melbourne ten years ago. It had not risen up to confront him when the plague had put a world of women at his command. He had not been forced to fight, he was not tempted--surely the thing was dead and buried. Only once, on that warm September night, had he felt a sudden furious desire to take this girl into his arms and fly with her into the woods. The desire had come and gone, he was master of it, and in any case it bore no resemblance to the brutal thing he had faced in Melbourne. Nor, as he stood now by Richmond Bridge watching the vault of the sky deepen to an intenser blue, did the feeling that possessed him in any way resemble that old cruel passion which had flared up and died--surely it had died. He could not analyse his feeling for this brave, clear-eyed companion, who had faced with him all the dangers of the past four days without a sign of fear. She had made no advances to him, they were friends, she might have been some delightfully clean, wholesome boy. And then his thought was pierced and broken by a horrible suggestion. A picture of the hill to Handy Cross flashed before him, and he saw a little lonely figure creeping furtively away from Marlow. He drove his nails into his palms and suddenly cried out. "What's up?" said Eileen, turning round and looking up at him. "Have you forgotten anything?"