Their nerves were like hot, jangling wires. Suddenly into the midst of that bare room there had sprung between them hatred. They faced each other ... they could have leapt at one another's throats and fought....

Suddenly Peter gave a little cry that seemed to fill the room. His head fell forward--

"Oh, Stephen, Stephen, I'm so damned ill, I'm so damnably ill."

He caught for a moment at his chest as though he would tear his shirt open. Then he stumbled from the bed and lay in a heap on the floor with his hands spread out--

Stephen picked him up in his arms and carried him on to his bed.

III

The little doctor who attended to the wants of Bucket Lane was discovered at his supper. He was a dirty little man, with large dusty spectacles, a red nose and a bald head. He wore an old, faded velveteen jacket out of the pockets of which stuck innumerable papers. He was very often drunk and had a shrew of a wife who made the sober parts of his life a misery, but he was kind-hearted and generous and had a very real knowledge of his business.

Mrs. Williams volubly could not conceal her concern at Peter's condition--"and 'im such a nice-spoken young genelman as I was saying only yesterday tea-time, there's nothin' I said, as I wouldn't be willin' to do for that there poor Mr. Westcott and that there poor Mr.

Brant 'oo are as like two 'elpless children in their fightin' the world as ever I see and 'ow ever can I help 'em I said--"

"Well, my good woman," the little doctor finally interrupted, "you can help here and now by getting some hot water and the other things I've put down here."

When she was gone he turned slowly to Stephen who stood, the picture of despair, looking down upon Peter.

"'E's goin' to die?" he asked.

"That depends," the little doctor answered. "The boy's been starved--ought never to have been allowed to get into this condition.

Both of you hard up, I suppose?"

"As 'ard up as we very well could be--" Stephen answered grimly.

"Well--has he no friends?"

There--the question at last. Stephen took it as he would have taken a blow between the eyes. He saw very clearly that the end of his reign had come. He had done what he could and he had failed. But in him was the fierce furious desire to fight for the boy. Why should he give him up, now, when they had spent all these weeks together, when they had struggled for their very existence side by side. What right had any of these others to Peter compared with his right? He knew very well that if he gave him up now the boy would never be his again. He might see him--yes--but that passing of Peter that he had already begun to realise would be accomplished. He might look at him but only as a wanderer may look from the valley up to the hill. The doctor broke in upon him as he stood hesitating there--

"Come," he said roughly, "we have not much time. The boy may die. Has he no friends?"

Stephen turned his back to Peter. "Yes," he said, "I know where they are. I will fetch them myself."

The doctor had not lived in Bucket Lane all these years for nothing. He put his hand on Stephen's arm and said: "You're a good fellow, by God.

It'll be all right."

Stephen went.

On his way to Bennett Square a thousand thoughts filled his mind. He knew, as though he had been told it by some higher power, that Peter was leaving him now never to return. He had done what he could for Peter--now the boy must pass on to others who might be able, more fittingly, to help him. He cursed the Gods that they had not allowed him to obtain work during these weeks, for then Peter and he might have gone on, working, prospering and the parting might have been far distant.

But he felt also that Peter's destiny was something higher and larger than anything that he could ever compass--it must be Peter's life that he should always be leaving people behind him--stages on his road--until he had attained his place. But for Stephen, a loneliness swept down upon him that seemed to turn the world to stone. Never, in all the years of his wandering, had he known anything like this. It is very hard that a man should care for only two creatures in the world and that he should be held, by God's hand, from reaching either of them.

The door of Brockett's was opened to him by a servant and he asked for Mrs. Brockett. In the cold and dark hall the lady sternly awaited him, but the sternness fell from her like a cloak when he told her the reason of his coming--

"Dear me, and the poor boy so ill," she said. "We have all been very anxious indeed about poor Mr. Peter. We had tried every clue but could hear nothing of him. We were especially eager to find him because Miss Monogue had some good news for him about his book. There is a gentleman--a friend of Mr. Peter's--who has been doing everything to find him--who is with Miss Monogue now. He will be delighted. Perhaps you will go up."

Stephen can have looked no agreeable object at this time, worn out by the struggle of the last weeks, haggard and gaunt, his beard unkempt--but Norah Monogue came forward to him with both her hands outstretched.

"Oh, you know something of Peter--tell us, please," she said.

A stout, pleasant-faced gentleman behind her was introduced as Mr.

Galleon.

Stephen explained. "But why, why," said the gentleman, "didn't you let us know before, my good fellow?"

Stephen's brow darkened. "Peter didn't wish it," he said.

But Norah Monogue came forward and put her hand on his arm. "You must be the Mr. Brant about whom he has so often talked," she said. "I am so glad to meet you at last. Peter owes so much to you. We have been trying everywhere to get word of him because some publishers have taken his novel and think very well of it indeed. But come--do let us go at once.

There is no time to lose--"

So they had taken his novel, had they? All these days--all these terrible hours--that starving, that ghastly anxiety, the boy's terror--all these things had been unnecessary. Had they only known, this separation now might have been avoided.

He could not trust himself to speak to Bobby Galleon and Norah Monogue.

These were the people who were going to take Peter away.

He turned and went, in silence, down the stairs.

At Bucket Lane Bobby Galleon took affairs into his own hands. At once Peter should be removed to his house in Chelsea--it would not apparently harm him to be moved that night.

Peter was still unconscious. Stephen stood in the back of the room and watched them make their preparations. They had all forgotten him. For a moment as they passed down the stairs Stephen had his last glimpse of Peter. He saw the high white forehead, the long black eyelashes, the white drawn cheeks.... At this parting Peter had no eye for him.

Bobby Galleon and Miss Monogue both spoke to Stephen pleasantly before they went away. Stephen did not hear what they said. Bobby took Stephen's name down on a piece of paper.... Then they were gone. They were all gone.

Mrs. Williams looked through the door at him for a moment but something in the man's face drove her away. Very slowly he put his few clothes together. He must tramp the roads again--the hard roads, the glaring sun, cold moon--always going on, always alone--

He shouldered his bag and went out....

BOOK III -- THE ROUNDABOUT

CHAPTER I

NO. 72, CHEYNE WALK

I

Burnished clouds--swollen with golden light and soft and changing in their outline--were sailing, against a pale green autumn evening sky, over Chelsea.

It was nearly six o'clock and at the Knightsbridge end of Sloane Street a cloud of black towers quivered against the pale green.