"Ah, there you are. I've been looking for you. I wanted to thank you and say good-bye. I'm afraid I've got to be pushing along." I acted my part as well as I could. "Pushing along! What are you talking about? What train are you going by? This is Sunday. Come along in to breakfast." "Oh, I'd a cup of tea and a biscuit in my room, thanks," he said hesitatingly. "I know it's springing it on you rather suddenly, George, but I really must be getting along." "What's all this about? Your book?" I demanded. "Yes, the book. Yes, the book, George." "But I tell you it's Sunday. There the twelve-forty-six and the four-fifty. You've missed the eight-fifty-five." "I thought of walking," he said. "All the way to London? That would take you two days. So it isn't your book after all." "Oh, I meant part of the way," he evaded, fidgeting. "Guildford or Weybridge or somewhere." "And is Julia going to walk to Guildford or Weybridge too? Don't be absurd. Come along to breakfast." Reluctantly he turned his face towards the house. I say I acted as well as I could; but it was acting. I had to act because I was afraid to face the reality. His haste to be off seemed to make that reality a twofold possibility. In the highly peculiar circumstances it was not for me, his host, to inquire whether he scrupled to breakfast or sit down in my house; but it was for me, technically still his friend, to wonder why he had tried to put me off with some tale about wanting to get on with his book and, in his eagerness to be gone, proposed to walk to London. It might have been decency and delicacy. On the other hand, he now experienced everything with the greatest intensity, and this sudden and imperious urge to walk might have been the first faint thrilling of that communicating nerve that, traced back, led to his Wanderjahre. At Julia I had not yet dared to look. I made him eat whether he wished it or not; oh, I was not above using my advantage. For he was entirely unaware that the cracking of a fir-cone under his foot had brought me out of my bed and to the door of my study. It was because he supposed me to have been soundly asleep all night that I was able to compel him to swallow his punctiliousness at the same time that he swallowed his trout, coffee and marmalade. If either or all of them stuck in his throat there was no remedy for that.... At least so at first I thought. But as breakfast proceeded, I began to be strangely aware of my complete helplessness. Much as I might wish it, I could not wash my hands of him. Once more, the choice was not mine, but his.