Bethel came in, and as usual joined the group at the fire without a word; he looked at the pedlar curiously and then seemed to recognise him--then he went up to him and soon they were in earnest conversation. It grew late, and at the stroke of midnight Newsome rose to shut up the house. "I will go back with you," Bethel said to Harry, and they walked to the door together. For a moment Harry turned back. The girl was bending over the sailor--her arms were round his neck, and his head was tilted back to meet her mouth; the pedlar was putting his wares into his pack again, but some pieces of yellow and blue silk had escaped him and lay on the floor at his feet; down the street three of the sailors were tramping home, and the chorus of a chanty died away as they turned the corner. The girl, the pedlar, the colours of the room, the vanishing song, remained with Harry to the end of his life--for that moment marked a period. As he walked up the hill he questioned Bethel about the pedlar. "Oh, I had met him," he said vaguely. "One knows them all, you know. But it is difficult to remember where. He is one of the last of his kind and an amusing fellow enough----" But he sighed--"I am out of sorts to-night--my kite broke. Do you know, Trojan, there are times when one thinks that one has at last got right back--to the power, I mean, of understanding the meaning and truth of things--and then, suddenly, it has all gone and one is just where one was years ago and it seems wasted. I tell you, man, last night I was on the moor and it was alive with something. I can't tell you what--but I waited and watched--I could feel them growing nearer and nearer, the air was clearer--their voices were louder--and then suddenly it was all gone. But of course you won't understand--none of you--why should you? You think that I am flying a kite--why, I am scaling the universe!" "Whatever you are doing," said Harry seriously, "you are not keeping your family. Look here, Bethel, you asked me once if I would be a friend of yours. Well, I accepted that, and we have been good friends ever since. But it really won't do--this kind of thing, I mean. Scaling the universe is all very well, if you are a single man--then it is your own look-out; but you are married--you have people depending on you, and they will soon be starving." Bethel burst out laughing. "They've got you, Trojan! They've got you!" he cried. "I knew it would come sooner or later, and it hasn't taken long. Three weeks and you're like the rest of them. No, you mustn't talk like that, really. Tell me I'm a damned fool--no good--an absolutely rotten type of fellow--and it's all true enough. But you must accept it at that. At least I'm true to my type, which is more than the rest of them are, the hypocrites!--and as to my family, well, of course I'm sorry, but they're happy enough and know me too well to have any hope of ever changing me----"