they were at least representative enough to set him wondering
which of their influences it was that had inflated with such a
gaseous heroism the Lawford of the night before. He thought of
Sheila with a not unkindly smile, and of the rest. 'I wonder what
they'll do?' had been a question almost as much in his mind
during these last few hours as had 'What am I to do?' in the
first bout of his 'visitation.'

But the 'they' was not very precisely visualised. He saw Sheila,
and Harry, and dainty pale-blue Bettie Lovat, and cautious old
Wedderburn, and Danton, and Craik, and cheery, gossipy Dr
Sutherland, and the verger, Mr Dutton, and Critchett, and the
gardener, and Ada, and the whole vague populous host that keep
one as definitely in one's place in the world's economy as a
firm-set pin the camphored moth. What his place was to be only
time could show. Meanwhile there was in this loneliness at least
a respite.

Solitude!--he bathed his weary bones in it. He laved his eyelids
in it, as in a woodland brook after the heat of noon. He sat on
in calmest reverie till his hunger was satisfied. Then,
scattering out his last crumbs to the birds from the barred
window, he climbed upstairs again, past his usual bedroom, past
his detested guest room, up into the narrow sweetness of Alice's,
and flinging himself on her bed fell into a long and dreamless
sleep.

By ten next morning Lawford had bathed and dressed. And at half-
past ten he got up from Sheila's fat little French dictionary and
his Memoirs to answer Mrs Gull's summons on the area bell. The