"Now, sir," said the old gentleman, when they were out of the store, "we
have done all that we can for the time being. I do not live far from
here. Perhaps you would give me the pleasure of taking supper with me,
if you have no other engagement."

No other engagement! Not until then did Hodder remember his empty rooms
in the parish house, and the train which was to have borne him away from
all this already speeding northward. He accepted gratefully, nor did he
pause to speculate upon the mystery by which the stream of his life
seemed so suddenly to have been diverted. He had, indeed, no sense of
mystery in the presence of this splendidly sane, serene old man, any more
than the children who ran after him from the dingy yards and passages,
calling his name, clinging to the skirts of his coat. These accepted
him simply as an anomalous fact in their universe, grinned at his
pleasantries, and held up grimy little hands for the kidney-shaped candy
beans he drew forth from his capacious pockets. In the intervals he
reminisced to the rector about the neighbourhood.

"It seems but a short while ago when the trees met overhead--magnificent
trees they were. The asphalt and the soot killed them. And there were
fruit trees in that yard"--he pointed with his stick to a littered sun
parched plot adjoining a battered mansion--"all pink and white with
blossoms in the spring. Mr. Hadley lived there--one of our forgotten
citizens. He is dead and gone now and his family scattered. That other
house, where the boy lies, belonged to Mr. Villars, a relation of the
Atterbury family, and I can recall very well a little girl with a pink
sash and a white dress who used to come running out to meet me with
flowers in her hands. Incredible as it may seem, she picked them in that
yard. I thought of her as I went in, how fresh and happy she used to be,
and what a different place this was for children then. She must have