John decided to walk from Earl's Court to West Kensington. Being still in complete ignorance of what Hugh had done, he had a presentiment that this time it was something really grave, and he was now beginning to believe that George knew how grave it was. Perhaps his decision to go on foot was not altogether wise, for he was tired out by a convulsive day, and he had never experienced before such a fathomless sinking of the stomach on the verge of being mixed up in a disagreeable family complication, which was prolonged by the opportunity that the walk afforded him for dismal meditation. While he hurried with bowed head along one ill-lighted road after another a temptation assailed him to follow George's advice and abandon Hugh, and not merely Hugh, but all the rest of his relations, a temptation that elaborated itself into going back to Church Row, packing up, and escaping to Arizona or British East Africa or Samoa. In the first place, he had already several times vowed never more to have anything to do with his youngest brother; secondly, he was justified in resenting strongly the tortuous road by which he had been approached on his behalf; thirdly, it might benefit Hugh's morals to spend a week or two in fear of the ubiquitous police, instead of a few stay-at-home tradesmen; fourthly, if anything serious did happen to Hugh, it would serve as a warning to the rest of his relations, particularly to George; finally, it was his dinner hour, and if he waited to eat his dinner before tackling Hugh, he should undoubtedly tackle him afterward in much too generous a frame of mind. Yes, it would be wiser to go home at once, have a good dinner, and start for Arizona to-morrow morning. The longer he contemplated it, the less he liked the way he had been beguiled into visiting Hugh. If the--the young bounder--no, really bounder was not too strong a word--if the young bounder was in trouble, why could he not have come forward openly and courageously to the one relation who could help him? Why had he again relied upon his mother's fondness, and why had she, as always, chosen the indirect channel by writing to George rather than to himself? The fact of the matter was that his mother and George and Hugh possessed similar loose conceptions of integrity, and now that it was become a question of facing the music they had instinctively joined hands. Yet George had advised him to have nothing more to do with Hugh, which looked as if his latest game was a bit too strong even for George to relish, for John declined to believe that George possessed enough of the spirit of competitive sponging to bother about trying to poach in Hugh's waters; Hilda or Eleanor might, but George.... George was frightened, that was it; obviously he knew more than he had told, and he did not want to be exposed ... it would not astonish him to learn that George was in the business with Hugh and had invented that letter from Mama to