She gave a whimsical look at him. “I ought to have said at once what I am going to say now: Did you hurt him much?” “I bashed him!” George said, revelling in it. “I fairly bashed him!” She snuggled against this tremendous fellow. II. It was a park-keeper who, from that opium drug of sweet silence with which lovers love to dull their senses, recalled them to the urgency for action. The park-keeper led David by one hand, Angela by the other, whence he had found them wandering. Disappointment that their owner was a protected lady instead of a nicely-shaped nursemaid whom by this introduction he might add to his recreations, delivered him of stern reproof at the carelessness which had let these children go astray. “I would very much like to know,” he concluded, “what their ma would say.” “My plump gentleman,” said George pleasantly, “meet me at this trysting-place at noon to-morrow, and your desire shall be gratified.” The park-keeper eyed him; thought better of the bitter words he had contemplated; contented himself with: “Funny, ain't yer?” “Screaming,” said George. “One long roar of mirth. Hundreds turned away nightly. Early doors threepence extra. Bring the wife.” The park-keeper withdrew with a morose air. III. And now my George and his Mary turned upon the immediate future. Conning the map of ways and means and roads of action, a desolate and almost horrifying country presented itself. No path that might be followed offered pleasant prospects. All led past that ogre's castle at 14 Palace Gardens; at the head of each stood the ogress shape of Mrs. Chater, gnashing for blood and bones over the disaster to her first-born. She must be faced. George flared a torch to light the gloom: “But why should you go near her, dearest? Let me do it. I'll take the children back. I'll see her. I'll get your boxes.” Even the sweetest women trudge through life handicapped by the preposterous burden of wishing to do what their sad little minds hold right. It is a load which, too firmly strapped, makes them dull companions on the highway. Mary said: “It wouldn't be _right_, dear. The children are in my charge; how could I send them back to their mother in the care of a strange man? And it wouldn't be right to myself, either. It would look as if I admitted myself in the wrong. No; I must, must face her.” George's torch guttered; gave gloom again. He tried a second: “Well, I'll come with you. That's a great idea. She won't dare say much while I'm there.” “Oh, it wouldn't be _right_, Georgie. You oughtn't to come to the house--to see her--after what you've done to the detestable Bob. No, I'll go alone and I'll go now. You shall come as far as the top of the road and there wait.” “And then?” George asked. This was to research the map for rest-houses and for fortunes that might be won after the ogre castle had been passed. Mary conned and peered until the strain squeezed a little moisture in her eyes. “I don't know,” she said faintly.