He would finish them and send them to the _Pall Mall Gazette_. That would be a guinea. He wished the journey had been longer. He would never see her again. Perhaps it was just as well. He crushed that last thought. It would be good to dwell through the day on the thought of her--the almost loved, the wholly lost. "That could but have happened once And we missed it, lost it for ever!" Her eyes were very pretty, especially when they opened themselves so widely as she tried to express the thoughts that no one but he had ever cared to hear expressed. The definite biography--dead father, ailing mother--hard work--hard life--hard-won post as High School Mistress, were but as the hoarding on which was pasted the artistic poster of their meeting--their parting. He sighed as he walked along the platform. The promise of June had fulfilled itself: he was rich in a sorrow that did not hurt--a regret that did not sting. Poor little girl! Poor pretty eyes! Poor timid, brave maiden-soul! Suddenly in his walk he stopped short. Obliquely through the door of the booking-office he saw her. She was alone. No troops of friends or relations had borne her off. She was waiting for someone; and someone had not come. What was to be done? He felt an odd chill. If he had only not taken her hand in that silly way which had seemed at the time so artistically perfect. The railway carriage talk might have been prolonged prettily, indefinitely. But that foolish contact had rung up the curtain on a transformation scene, whose footlights needed, at least, a good make-up for the facing of them. She stood there--looking down the road; in every line of her figure was dejection; hopelessness itself had drawn the line of her head's sideward droop. His make-up need be but of the simplest. She had expected to meet someone, and someone had not come. His chivalric impulses, leaping to meet the occasion's call, bade him substitute a splendid replacement--himself, for the laggard tryst-breaker. Even though he knew that that touch of the hand must inaugurate the second volume of the day's romance. He came behind her and spoke. "Hasn't he come?" He did not like himself for saying "he"--but he said it. It belonged to the second volume. She turned with a start and a lighting of eyes and lips that almost taught him pity. Not quite: for the poet's nature is hard to teach. "He?" she said, decently covering the light of lips and eyes as soon as might be. "It was a friend. She was to come from Sevenoaks. She ought to be here. We were to have a little picnic together." She glanced at her basket. "I didn't know you were getting out here. Why--" The question died on trembling lips. "Why?" he repeated. There was a pause. "And now, what are you going to do?" he asked, and his voice was full of tender raillery for her lost tryst with the girl friend, and for her pretty helplessness. "I--I don't know," she said.