"Enraged you?" "Yes. What right have I to be enraged with you, you'll say, but never mind that. I've been enraged with you because you've been such a continual disappointment ever since I've known you. This is a time for straight talking, isn't it? So don't be offended. When you first came to Millstead you were just a jolly schoolboy--nothing more, though you probably thought you were--you were brimful of schoolboyish ideals and schoolboyish enthusiasms. Weren't you? Nobody could help liking you--you were so--so _nice_--_nice_ is the word, isn't it?" "You're mocking me." "Not at all. I mean it. You _were_ nice, and I liked you very much. Compared with the average fussily jaded Master at a public-school you were all that was clean and hopeful and energetic. I wondered what would become of you. I wondered whether you'd become a sarcastic devil like Ransome, a vulgar little counter-jumper like Pritchard, or a beefy, fighting parson like Clanwell. I knew that whatever happened you wouldn't stay long as you were. But I never thought that you'd become what you are. Good God, man, you _are_ a failure, aren't you?" "What's the good of rubbing it in?" "This much good--that I want you to be quite certain of the depth you've fallen to. A man of your sort soon forgets his mistakes. That's why he makes so many of them twice over." "Well--admitting that I am a failure, what then? What advice have you to offer me?" "I advise you to leave Millstead." "When?" "At the end of the term." "And where shall I go?" "Anywhere except to another school." "What shall I do?" "Anything except repeat your mistakes." "And Helen?" "Take her with you." "But she is one of my mistakes." "I know that. But you've got to put up with it." "And if I can't?" "Then I don't know." He suddenly plunged his head into his hands and was silent. Her ruthless summing-up of the situation calmed him, made him ready for the future, but filled that future with a dreariness that was awful to contemplate. After a while he rose, saying: "Well, I suppose you're right. I'll go back now. God knows what'll happen to me between now and the end of term. But I guess I'll manage somehow. Anyway, I'm much obliged for your first-aid. Good-bye--don't trouble to let me out--I know how the door works." "I want to lock up after you're gone," she said. In the dark lobby the sudden terror of what he had done fell on him like a crushing weight. He had told Clare that he did not love Helen. And then, following upon that, came a new and more urgent terror--he had not told Clare that it was she whom he loved. What was the use of telling her the one secret without the other?--Perhaps he would never see Clare again. This might be his last chance. If he did not take it or make it the torture of his self-reproaching would be unendurable. "You came without any coat and hat," she observed. "Let me lend you my raincoat--it's no different from a man's."