Only that morning he had watched men at work on it, with almost a shudder. They looked like so many flies crawling over the flimsy boards, and he had waited while one workman had peered nonchalantly over the edge of his plank and indulged in a wordy warfare with the man below. It seemed that unless the latter mended his ways he would shortly receive a brick on his blinking nut; but it was the complete disregard for their dizzy height that had fascinated Peter. He could imagine few professions which he would less sooner join than that of steeplejack. And yet the funny thing was that on the occasions when he had flown he had not noticed any discomfort at all. Presumably there was some scientific reason for it—something which would account for the fact that, though he could fly at twenty times the height of St. Paul’s without feeling giddy, on the occasion when he had looked over the edge of that great dome from the little platform at the top he had been overcome with a sort of dreadful nausea and had had to go back quickly. "Why, Peter, what are you doing here all alone?" A voice behind him made him look round. For a moment the dog episode had gone out of his mind, and, with a quick smile, he took a step towards the speaker. "Why, Sybil," he said, "how topping you look! Isn’t it a glorious night?" And then suddenly he remembered, and stopped with a frown. "Peter," said the girl, quietly, "I want to hear about this afternoon from you, please." "Haven’t you heard all there is to be heard?" he answered, a little bitterly. "Miss Saunderson’s dog fell into the mill-stream. I failed to pull it out: to be strictly accurate, I failed to attempt to pull it out. That’s all there is to it." They faced one another in the moonlight, and after a while the girl spoke again. "That’s not like you. Peter. Why did you let it drown?" "Because," said the man, deliberately, "I did not consider I was called on to risk my life to save a dog. Even poor little Toots," he added, cynically. "Supposing it had been a child, Peter?" said the girl, gravely. "My God!" answered the man, very low. "As bad as that, is it? Oh, my God!" "They’re saying things, Peter: all these people are saying things." The man thrust his hands into his pockets, and stared with brooding eyes at the black, lifeless chimney. "Saying I’m a coward, are they?" He forced the words out. "What do you think, Sybil?" The girl bit her lip, and suddenly put her hand on his arm. "Oh, Peter," she whispered, "it wasn’t like you—not a bit!" "You think," he said, dispassionately, "that I should have been justified—more, that I ought to have jumped into the mill-stream in flood to save that dog?" But the girl made no answer: she only looked miserably at the man’s averted face. "I don’t know," she said at length. "I don’t know. It’s so—so difficult to know what to say."