Ransome added, with a hardly perceptible smile: "There's also a chapter about Courtship and Marriage. You might find it interesting, Mr. Speed." Speed blushed furiously. Afterwards, strolling over to the House with Clanwell, Speed said: "I say, was that long yarn Ransome told about Harrington true, do you think?" Clanwell replied: "Well, it may have been. You can never be quite certain with Ransome, though. But he does know how to tell a story, doesn't he?" Speed agreed. Late that night the news percolated, somehow or other, that old Harrington was dead. IV Curious, perhaps, that Speed, who had never even seen the man, and whose knowledge of him was derived almost solely from Ransome's "droll" story, should experience a sensation of personal loss! Yet it was so, mysteriously and unaccountably: the old man's death took his mind further away from Millstead than anything had been able to do for some time. The following morning he met Helen in the lane outside the school and his first remark to her was: "I say, have you heard about old Harrington?" Helen said: "Yes, isn't it terrible?--I'm so sorry for Clare--I went down to see her last night. Poor Clare!" He saw tears in her eyes, and at this revelation of her abounding pity and warm-heartedness, his love for her welled up afresh, so that in a few seconds his soul was wholly in Millstead again. "You look tired, Helen," he said, taking her by the arm and looking down into her eyes. Then she burst into tears. "I'm all right," she said, between gulps of sobbing. "It's so sad, though, isn't it?--Death always frightens me. Oh, I'm so sorry for Clare. Poor darling Clare! ... Oh, Kenneth--I _was_ miserable last night when I came home. I didn't know what to do, I was so miserable. I--I _did_ want to see you, and I--I walked along the garden underneath Clanwell's room and I heard your voice in there." He said, clasping her arm tightly: "Yes, I went to Clanwell for coffee after prep." She went on pathetically: "You sounded so happy--I heard you laughing. Oh, it was terrible to hear you laughing when I was miserable!" "Poor little child!"--He bent down suddenly and kissed her eyes. "What a sad and forlorn little girl you are this morning!--Don't you guess why I'm so happy nowadays?" "Why are you?" He said, very slowly and beautifully: "Because of you. Because you have made my life utterly and wonderfully different. Because all the beauty in the world reminds me of you. When I wake up in the morning with the sun on my face I want to roar with laughter--I don't know why, except that I'm so happy."