He went out into the storm of wind for a few moments before going to bed. Never, till then, had Lavery's seemed to desolate, so mightily cruel. He walked in sheer morbidness of spirit to the pavilion steps where he and Helen, less than a year ago, had thought themselves the happiest couple in the world. There was no moonlight now, and the pavilion was a huge dark shadow. Poor Helen--_poor_ Helen! He wished he had never met her. CHAPTER FOUR I The torture of his soul went on. He lost grip of his House; he was unpopular now, and he knew it. Smallwood and other influential members of the school openly cut him in the street. A great silence (so he often imagined, but it could not have been really so) fell upon the Masters' Common-Room whenever he entered it. Pritchard, so he heard, was in the habit of making cheap jokes against him with his class. Even Clanwell took him aside one evening and asked him why he had dropped the habit of coming up to coffee. "Why don't you come up for a chat sometime?" he asked, and from the queer look in his eyes Speed knew well enough what the chat was likely to be about. "Oh, I'm busy," he excused himself. He added: "Perhaps I'll drop in sometime, though." "Yes, do," said Clanwell encouragingly. But Speed never did. Then one morning Speed was summoned into the dark study. The Head smiled and invited him to sit down. He even said, with ominous hospitality: "Have a cigarette--um, no?" and pushed the cigarette-box an inch or so away from him. Then he went on, unbuttoning the top button of his clerical coat: "I hope--um--you will not think me--um--impertinent--if I mention a matter which has--um--which has not reached my ears--um--through an official channel. You had, I--um--I believe,--an--um--altercation with one of the house-porters the other day. Am I--am I right?" "Yes, quite right." "Well, now, Mr. Speed--such--um--affairs are rather undignified, don't you think? I'm not--um--apportioning blame--oh, no, not in any way, but I do--um, yes--I most certainly do think that a housemaster should avoid such incidents if he can possibly do so. No--um--no personal reflection on you at all, Mr. Speed--merely my advice to you, as a somewhat elderly man to an--um, yes--to a friend. Yes, a friend. Perhaps I might add more--um--significantly--to an--um--son-in-law." He smiled a wide, sly smile. Speed clenched his hands on his knees. The dark study grew almost intolerable. He felt he would like to take Ervine's mottled neck in his hands and wring it--carefully and calculatingly....