But there is no oblivion to be found in a game of draughts. For some days, John bore with the society of the amiable Mr. Chesterton. He listened to his stories of visits that he had paid in other establishments, where they had prevailed upon him to do odd jobs about the house, even to the cleaning of the knives and boots. The only time when he seemed to have resolutely refused to do anything, was on the occasion he had spent seven days with the lady journalist who had a beard and a fair tidy moustache. "I wouldn’t even have shaved her if she’d asked me to," he said. This sort of thing may be amusing; but it needs the time, it needs the place. In those rooms of his, where only a few days before, Jill had been sitting--at that period of his life when hope was lowest and despair triumphant, John found no amusement in it at all. He wanted his oblivion. His whole desire was to forget. The life that had held all promise for him, was gone--irrevocably broken. He sought for that, which would, by contrast, close the memory of it, as you shut a book that is read. It was not to be done by playing draughts with Mr. Chesterton. It was not to be done in the ways that the crowd of men will choose. He had attempted that--found it impossible and flung it aside. It was then that he thought of Amber. She had had a rightful place once, a place that had accorded with his ideas of the cleanliness of existence. Only that he had met Jill--only that he had loved--only that he had found the expression of his ideal in her, Amber would still have been there. And now--now that he had lost everything--why not return? It was the most human thing in the world. Life was not possible of such ideals. So he argued, the darkness slowly diminishing--the light of some reason creeping again into his mind. But the bitterness was still there. He still did not care and, as yet, his mind did not even rebel against such callousness. One evening, then, he left Mr. Chesterton finishing the reading of his book. He hailed the first hansom he saw and, screwing himself into the corner of the seat, took a deep breath of relief as he drove away. Then began the fear as he drove, the fear that he would not find Amber, that since she had gone out of his life, she would have readjusted her mind, found other interests, or even that she might not be there when he arrived. And now, once his destination was made, he dreaded the thought that Circumstance should balk his desire. Jumping quickly out of the hansom, he paid his fare, hurried up the steps and rattled the flap of the letter-box. This was the knocker of friends. All those who used the proper means were creditors, not answered until inspected carefully from behind lace curtains. For a few moments, his heart beat tentatively. There was no sound, no light from within. Then came the quick tapping of high-heels. He took a breath. The door opened. He saw her face of amazement in the darkness.