It was suffocatingly hot inside the phone box; I put my foot in the door to open it.

“I’m afraid I’ve got to go back,” I said. “Barbara’s not well. Nothing serious, but she’s fretting for her daddy.”

“I’m so sorry. Poor little darling. What is it?”

“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “She’ll live though. It’s some infection that’s going the rounds—” I went on, trapped by the lie into giving Barbara what were, I realized as I left the phone box, most of the symptoms of an illness there was a scare about at the time; an illness which I dreaded above all others. Not but what there weren’t plenty to choose from: if God loved little child­ren He had a peculiar way of demonstrating it.

A voice from the loudspeaker said something about the Led­dersford train; as I stood there, sweating and grubby, it seemed to have an admonitory note. The four-forty-five for Leddersford, stopping at Peterborough, Grantham, Wakefield and Tanbury, had now arrived at Number Ten platform. There was a message for Mr. Joe Lampton of Warley. Mr. Joe Lampton of Warley. His lie had been detected. Mr. Lampton would suffer for it. Mr. Lamp­ton would suffer for it.

I remembered Barbara when I’d said goodbye to her early on Monday morning. I’d slipped into her room quietly so as not to wake her but as soon as I opened the door she’d awakened and held out her arms. “Earn a lot of pennies this time, Daddy,” she’d said. “A big lot of pennies.”

“Why?” I’d said.

“Then you won’t have to go away again, Daddy.”

I smiled at the recollection and the voice from the loud­speaker diminished into an ordinary statement of time and des­tination. It could well have added that despite his many faults Joe Lampton loved his daughter; but it didn’t matter. He knew it and she knew it and he told the lie only to be with her the sooner.