Why was this? Why had he failed? he asked himself as he dragged the heavy suitcase down the main street towards the station. The answer, like everything else, was fragmentary: partly because the University had, by its three years’ random and shapeless cram­ming, unfitted his mind for serious thinking; partly because of the continued nagging of his circumstances (‘Go out this morning or she’ll know you haven’t a job—come to a decision to-day before you waste any more time—look at the papers to see what sort of jobs are offered’), and partly for the blunt, simple reason that his problems did not really admit of any solution. At least, he comforted himself, he had remained stationary; if he had been surrounded by the well-meant fatuity of those who had always sought to ‘guide’ him, there was no telling what disastrous steps might already have been taken. As it was, his position was precisely the same as it had been before his attempt to face the problems that hemmed him about; he had not yet realized, what circumstances were soon to teach him, that his predicament was not one that could be improved by thinking.

It was inevitable, then, that a sense of defeat should bow Charles’s shoulders and line his forehead as he paid out his last pound note for a ticket to the town where his parents, relatives, and acquaintances were waiting to ask where he had been. If it were not for Sheila, he thought grimly as he waited for the few shillings’ change that now represented his total resources, he’d hold out somehow, sleeping on park benches, selling newspapers for a living. But he had to see her, even though he had nothing to bring her that would make sense of his silence, nothing that would bring their marriage nearer or make it more attractive. What a mess it all was! Charles sighed as he stuffed the ticket into his waistcoat pocket and gathered up the change.

The train drew in, and he clambered indifferently into the compartment that was facing him as it stopped, heaved his suit­case on to the rack and slumped into a corner seat. With the exaggerated reserve implanted in him by his upbringing he studiously averted his eyes from the other two occupants of the compartment, seeing them only as blurred forms, a middle-aged couple without distinctive features. It was only when the train had left the station and the broad fields of a Midland landscape were streaming past the windows that he became aware that they were studying him, timidly, but with an intense interest that was obviously on the point of forcing them to break their silence. He looked up and met their gaze. Yes! Where had he seen them before?

‘It’s Mr. Lumley, isn’t it?’ said the man at last.