It was galling, none the less, to find that he could mot afford to buy a single new book, to hire a piano, or to hear any music except the free recitals by which the municipal organist convinced the citizens of North Bromwich that they were getting something for their money, in debauches of sound that reminded them how much the organ had cost. Sometimes, to Edwin’s joy, he played the fugues of the Well-tempered Clavier, and on their wide streams he would be carried from springs of mountain sweetness, by weir and cataract to solemn tidal waters and lose himself at last in seas of absolute music. Time after time he thanked God for Bach, and walked home to his garret like a man who has gazed upon the splendour of a full sea and carries its tumult in his mind far inland. Through all these experiences Edwin was so possessed by the one idea of holding on until his final exam. was over that he scarcely missed the society of his friends. He knew that his friendship with Boyce was founded too deeply in common experience ever to be shaken by his own changed circumstances: it might lapse, but it could never be broken. He always felt that the future held more for them than the past had ever given; but his other friends, Maskew and Martin in particular, seemed to have been translated to another place of existence. In the wards and in the lecture theatres he would meet them; but elsewhere they had nothing in common with his way of existence. Even W.G. seemed gradually to be slipping away from him—an unreasonable state, for Edwin, after all, was now for the first time sharing something of the big man’s early experience. For several months they had scarcely spoken, and then, one day, nearly ran into each other’s arms in Sackville Row, and almost mechanically wandered off to the Dousita together. In the shades of the smoking-room nothing had changed. When they sank into the cushions of their favourite corner Miss Wheeler approached them with an exact replica of the smile with which, four years before, she had engaged the heart of Maskew; and when she took their order, she stood on one leg in exactly the same position, leaning, with a hint of tiredness that was not surprising in a young woman who habitually breathed tobacco smoke in place of oxygen, with her hand on the curtain at the side of their settee. “I never see Mr. Maskew now,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t think whatever ’as happened to all you boys, I’m sure.” She brought them coffee, and W.G., who had scarcely spoken, but whose knitted brows testified to the pressure of some urgent problem, said:— “Well, how do you like it?” “What do you mean?” “Being on your own.” “Oh, it’s all right,” said Edwin. “I never thought you’d stick it,” W.G. confessed. “I didn’t think you had it in you. You see, in your case there was never the least necessity for it.” “There was, you know—”