almost as if of an unintelligible remorse had overtaken him, a
vague thought that behind all these past years, hidden as it were
from his daily life, lay something not yet quite reckoned with.
How often as a boy had he been rapped into a galvanic activity
out of the deep reveries he used to fall into--those fits of a
kind of fishlike day-dream. How often, and even far beyond
boyhood, had he found himself bent on some distant thought or
fleeting vision that the sudden clash of self-possession had made
to seem quite illusory, and yet had left so strangely haunting.
And now the old habit had stirred out of its long sleep, and,
through the gate that Influenza in departing had left ajar, had
returned upon him.

'But I suppose we are all pretty much the same, if we only knew
it,' he had consoled himself. 'We keep our crazy side to
ourselves; that's all. We just go on for years and years doing
and saying whatever happens to come up--and really keen about it
too'--he had glanced up with a kind of challenge in his face at
the squat little belfry--'and then, without the slightest reason
or warning, down you go, and it all begins to wear thin, and you
get wondering what on earth it all means.' Memory slipped back
for an instant to the life that in so unusual a fashion seemed to
have floated a little aloof. Fortunately he had not discussed
these inward symptoms with his wife. How surprised Sheila would
be to see him loafing in this old, crooked churchyard. How she
would lift her dark eyebrows, with that handsome, indifferent
tolerance. He smiled, but a little confusedly; yet the thought
gave even a spice of adventure to the evening's ramble.

He loitered on, scarcely thinking at all now, stooping here and