The morning grew more beautiful. In some strange way its beauty seemed to have got into his blood; for he tingled with a kind of mild ecstasy which he couldn’t help feeling unsuitable—almost irreverent, to the tragic occasion. There was adventure in it and the added charm of the unexpected. He was going home. Surely it was reasonable enough to be excited at such a prospect as that, to smell the fine summer scents that were so different in a midland shire; to see the gorse ablaze on Pen Beacon and Uffdown and the green glades of the old Mercian wood. Of course it was always wonderful to be going home. He remembered other homecomings from St. Luke’s; the first, and best of all, when, on a December morning they had crowded into the housemaster’s room where Mr. Selby sat in his dressing-gown, with a gaslight flaring, handing out the little paper packets of travelling money; how the damp platform at the station had been crowded with human happiness and such a holiday spirit of independence that Griffin and Douglas had lighted cigarettes while they waited for the train. That was the town station. He reflected that he had only once before been to the Downs, where the train service, except on race days, was not so good; that had been on the occasion of his first visit to St. Luke’s for the scholarship exam. He had come down in an Eton suit, fortunately correct, and an unfortunate topper that he would have given his life to hide when he found that they were not worn. And his mother had come down with him. At the thought of her the old numbing dread fell upon his heart. Perhaps this was the very carriage in which they had travelled. He remembered the journey so well: how she had sat in the right-hand corner, with her face to the engine, wearing a tailor-made grey coat and skirt, a velvet hat and a veil. He had been looking at her rather critically, for he was anxious that she should seem what she was—the most beautiful creature in the world. And when he was looking at her with this in his mind she had smiled at him, for no other reason in the world probably but that she loved him; and with that smile he had been satisfied that she really was beautiful. And he had noticed how lovely her hands were when she took her gloves off. . . . Now, the memory of the moment made him want to cry, just as the beauty of the morning made him full of exultation. It was a most perilous mixture of emotions.