Together they took the little path back over the grass-grown marsh, where phantom sheep coughed in the fog, and so across the foot-bridge to the London side of the Lea, and the little wharfside cottages, and up on to the Lea Bridge Road, and into Mare Street, and there, by unusual good fortune there strayed a taxi, a rare phenomenon north of Shoreditch, and Eddy put Eileen and himself and his bicycle in it and on it, and so they came back out of the wilds of the east, by Liverpool Street and the city, across London to Campden Hill Road in the further west. And all the way Eileen leant back exhausted and very still, only shuddering from time to time, as one does after a fit of crying or of sickness. But by the end of the journey she was a little restored. Listlessly she touched Eddy’s hand with her cold one. “Eddy, you are a dear. You’ve been good to me, and I such a great fool. I’m sorry. It isn’t often I am.... But I think if you hadn’t come to-night I would have gone mad, no less. I was on the way there, I believe. Thank you for saving me. And now you’ll come in and have something, won’t you.” He would not come in. He should before this have been at Mrs. Crawford’s for dinner. He waited to see her in, then hurried back to Soho to dress. His last sight of her was as she turned to him in the doorway, the light on her pale, tear-marred face, trying to smile to cheer him. That was a good sign, he believed, that she could think even momentarily of anyone but herself and the other who filled her being. Heavy-hearted for pity and regret, he drove back to his rooms and hurriedly dressed, and arrived in Hyde Park Terrace desperately late, a thing Mrs. Crawford found it hard to forgive. In fact, she did not try to forgive it. She said, “Oh, we had quite given up hope. Hardwick, some soup for Mr. Oliver.” Eddy said he would rather begin where they had got to. But he was not allowed thus to evade his position, and had to hurry through four courses before he caught them up. They were a small party, and he apologised across the table to his hostess as he ate. “I’m frightfully sorry; simply abject. The fact is, I met a friend on Leyton Marsh.” “On _what_?” “Leyton Marsh. Up in the north east, by the Lea, you know.” “I certainly don’t know. Is that where you usually take your evening walks when dining in Kensington?” “Well, sometimes. It’s the way to Walthamstow, you see. I know some people there.” “Really. You do, as the rationalist bishop told you, touch a very extensive circle, certainly. And so you met one of them on this marsh, and the pleasure of their society was such----” “She wasn’t well, and I took her back to where she lived. She lives in Kensington, so it took ages; then I had to get back to Compton Street to dress. Really, I’m awfully sorry.” Mrs. Crawford’s eyebrows conveyed attention to the sex of the friend; then she resumed conversation with the barrister on her right.