Leighton looked around. "Trying to pick up a side-tracked car?" Lewis smiled faintly, but understandingly. "It's not quite side-tracked--yet," he said. "Ah, boy, never look back," said Leighton. "But, no; do. Do look back. You're young yet. Tell me about it." Then for a long time Lewis talked of Nadir: of the life there, of the Reverend Orme, grown morose through unnamed troubles; of Mrs. Leighton, withered away till naught but patience was left; of happy mammy, grown sad; of Natalie, friend, playmate, and sacrifice. "So they wanted to marry your little pal into motherhood twenty times over, ready-made," said Leighton. "And you fought them, told 'em what you thought of it. You were right, boy; you were right. The wilderness must have turned their heads. But you ought to have stayed with it. Why didn't you stay with it? You're no quitter." "There were things I said to the Reverend Orme," said Lewis, slowly--"things I knew, that made it impossible for me to stay." "Things you knew? What things?" Lewis did not answer. * * * * * It was on a gray Sunday that they entered London. In a four-wheeler, the roof of which groaned under a pyramid of baggage, they started out into the mighty silence of deserted streets. The _plunk! plunk!_ of the horse's shod hoofs crashed against the blank walls of the shuttered houses and reverberated ahead of them until sound dribbled away down the gorge of the all-embracing nothing. Gray, gray; heaven and earth and life were gray. Lewis felt like crying, but Leighton came to the rescue. He was in high spirits. "Boy, look out of the window. Is there anywhere in the world a youth spouting verse on a street corner?" "No," said Lewis. "Or an orator shooting himself to give point to an impassioned speech?" "No." "Or women shaking their bangles into the melting-pot for the cause of freedom?" "No." "I should say not. This is Sunday in London. Take off your hat. You are in the graveyard of all the emotions of the earth." Up one flight of stairs, over a tobacconist's shop, Leighton raised and dropped the massive bronze knocker on a deep-set door. He saw Lewis's eyes fix on the ponderous knocker. "Strong door to stand it, eh? They don't make 'em that way any more." The door swung open. A man-servant in black bowed as Leighton entered. "Glad to welcome you back, sir. I hope you are well, sir." "Thanks, Nelton, I'm well as well. So is Master Lewis. Got his room ready? Show him the bath." Lewis, looking upon Nelton, suddenly remembered a little room in the Sul Americano at Bahia. He felt sure that when Nelton opened his mouth it would be to say, "Will you be wearing the white flannels to-night, sir, or the dinner-jacket?" By lunch-time Leighton's high spirits were on the decline, by four o'clock they had struck bottom. He kept walking to the windows, only to turn his back quickly on what he saw. At last he said: "D'you know what a 'hundred to one shot' is?"