"_I_ should, though. I've got from Taplow a full account of all I've cost while I've been here, and when I'm earning money I shall pay back every penny of it. It's only fair." "_Fair_? Terry, how can you _think_ it's fair, when the money that's such a lot to you is so little to him? It's absurd--he'd laugh at it." "It doesn't matter. I can't live at his expense any longer, now there's a job been offered me." "And you want the job?" "Yes ... I want ... my work." Another pause, and then, out of the velvet silence: "Terry.... _Don't go_...." "June! ... _June_! ... _What_ do you mean?" Was it an echo to him out of the past--the past that, so he had said, was just a blank that nobody remembered? Footsteps crunched along the gravel; the latch of the side-gate was lifted up; they had gone out again into the pale, starlit lane.... III It was past two when he came up to bed. No longer at all sleepy, I was waiting for him in the sole armchair that our room possessed; Severn's _Disraeli_ was open on my knee, but it had taken me over an hour to read five of its most fascinating pages. He said nothing at first, beyond apologizing for his lateness. I thought he looked worried and unsettled; he went to the window, lit a cigarette, and stood there for a moment with his back towards me. "Sleepy?" he said at last. "Not particularly," I replied. "Neither am I." Was it an invitation to talk? I wondered, but I knew that if it were he would soon repeat it more definitely. He said, after a pause: "I don't think I shall sleep at all to-night." "No?" The less you encouraged him the more likely he was to say what was in his mind. That had always been his way. He swung round suddenly. "By the way, Hilton, I want to take that job in Australia." "You do?" "Yes.... _You_ think I ought to, don't you?" I said: "From the purely personal point of view I'm just hating the thought of you taking it. But, on the other hand, you must admit it's a goodish job, as jobs go nowadays." "Yes.... That's what I feel. And I can't go on like this...." He dragged a small chair near to the window and sat down. "Aged thirty and beginning all over again," he went on. "No money. Heavily in debt. No position. Impossible to think of marriage--even if I wanted to.... And yet, for all that, in the things that really matter, I've succeeded. I _can_ feel that, can't I?" I nodded. "From your own point of view, undoubtedly. But there are times when the material side of life is apt to come to the front rather awkwardly." "Yes." His voice was eager, as if he had found me interpreting his own thoughts. "Hilton, to tell you the truth, I'm in a fix.... I want to take this job, as I said--in fact, I know I _must_ take it--and yet--and yet...." He hesitated, and then finished up: "There's such an odd sort of difficulty in the way."