want of substantial food. Better take these sandwiches."

"All right; and thank you. I'll eat them when we start. Just now
the water-chestnuts...."

She smiled, and returned to the spinsters.

Spurlock began to munch his water-chestnuts. What he needed was not
a food but a flavour; and the cocoanut taste of the chestnuts
soothed his burning tongue and throat. He had let go his name so
easily as that! What was the name she had given? Ruth something; he
could not remember. What a frightened fool he was! If he could not
remember her name, it was equally possible that already she had
forgotten his. Conscience was always digging sudden pits for his
feet and common sense ridiculing his fears. Mirages, over which he
was constantly throwing bridges which were wasted efforts, since
invariably they spanned solid ground.

But he would make it a point not to speak again to the girl. If he
adhered to this policy--to keep away from her inconspicuously--she
would forget the name by night, and to-morrow even the bearer of it
would sink below the level of recollection. That was life. They
were only passers-by.

Drink for him had a queer phase. It did not cheer or fortify him
with false courage and recklessness; it simply enveloped him in a
mist of unreality. A shudder rippled across his shoulders. He hated
the taste of it. The first peg was torture. But for all that, it
offered relief; his brain, stupefied by the fumes, grew dull, and
conscience lost its edge to bite.