"I'm tired. Let us sit down here," she said. "No, Mater, not here." "Really, Horace," Mrs. Errington said, "you are in an extraordinary mood to-day. You have no regard for me. What is the matter with you?" And she sat down on the seat. Horace remained standing. "I shan't sit here," he said obstinately. "Very well," Mrs. Errington replied. She really began to look ill, but Horace was too much preoccupied with his own feelings to notice it. There was something abominable to him in his mother sitting calmly down to rest in the very place occupied a few hours ago by the wretched creature who had, so Horace believed, been driven to death by her refusal of charity. He felt sick with horror in that neighbourhood, and he moved away, and stood staring across the Serpentine. Presently Mrs. Errington called to him in a faint voice---- "Horace, come and give me your hand." He turned, noticed her extreme pallor, and ran up. "What's the row? Are you ill, Mater?" "No. Help me up." He put out his hand. She got up slowly. "We'll go home," he said. "You look awfully seedy." "No; let us walk on." In spite of his remonstrances she insisted on walking up and down at the edge of the Serpentine for quite an hour. She appeared to be on the look-out for somebody. Over and over again they passed the spot where the beggar had drowned himself. Their feet trod over the ground on which his dead body had been laid. Each time they reached it Horace felt himself grow cold. Death is so terrible to the young. At last Mrs. Errington stopped. "I can't walk much more," she said. "Then do let's go home now," Horace said. She stood looking round her, searching the Park with her eyes. "I suppose we must," she said slowly. Then she added, "We can come here again to-morrow." Horace was puzzled. "What for? Why should we?" he asked. But his mother made no reply, and they walked home. Next day she insisted on going again to the same place, and again she was obviously on the look-out. Horace grew more and more puzzled by her demeanour. And when the third day came, and once more Mrs. Errington called him to set forth to the Serpentine, he said to her, with a boy's bluntness---- "D'you want to meet someone there?" Mrs. Errington looked at him strangely. "Yes," she said, after a minute's silence. "Why, who is it?" "That beggar I wouldn't let you give money to." Horace turned scarlet with the shock of surprise and the knowledge--which he absurdly felt as guilty knowledge--that the man was dead, perhaps even buried by now. "Oh, nonsense, Mater!" he began, stammering. "He won't come there again. Besides, you never give to beggars." "I mean to give this man something." Horace was more and more surprised. "Why?" he exclaimed. "Why now? You wouldn't when I wanted you to, and now--now it's too late. What do you wish to give to him for now?"