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slowly? I don’t want you to tell me anything that you’d rather not talk about before a stranger. But I owe you a good bit for what you did this afternoon, and I’m ready to help in any way I can. I’ve come here prepared to do so.’
    I hope that I may be forgiven for that lie. I thought for a minute, and then continued: ‘I didn’t quite realise from what you said this afternoon that you really meanto stay in the country. I’ve been thinking about getting you out. I’ll even go so far as to say that I’m pretty sure I can get you to France within the week. I mean that. But if there’s any other way in which I can help I hope you’ll let me know.’
    ‘I don’t want to get you into trouble,’ he said.
    ‘It doesn’t matter a damn about me,’ I said. ‘But it seems to me that by staying in England you run a great danger of being caught again—in fact, it’s pretty long odds against you. But—from now onwards you’ve got to think about Miss Stevenson here. If they get you they’ll pretty certainly be able to trace out everyone who’s been in contact with you, and that may mean trouble. I understand that you got out of prison for some reason—and by the way, it would be interesting to learn how you did it. The point I want to make is that if you stay in England it’s up to you to avoid being caught, and it seems to me that that’s a far tougher proposition than getting you out of the country.’
    ‘I see what you mean,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes, I see that.’
    He turned from me to the table and began to eat. He had had no food for thirty-six hours, he said; at the same time, he had very little appetite and ate a surprisingly small meal. I mixed myself a stiff whisky and sat down by the fire, wondering what on earth was going to happen to this chap. Now that I had time to study him more closely, I liked the look of him. He was much my own build with very much the same hair and complexion, though his hair was short while mine was long and brushed back over my head.
    The girl came and sat down opposite me, but we said very little till Compton had finished his meal. I sat drowsing in front of the fire, whisky in hand, and tried to think what was the best line to take if he insisted onstaying in England. I wanted to help him. It wasn’t only that he had saved my life; I knew as I sat there in the warm darkness that I should have helped him anyway. I looked round the room in the red light of the stove; it was a comfortable, decently furnished place. I could imagine from the room something of the nature of the owner of the house, the girl’s father. He was a collector of mezzotints; they stared down from all the walls, some beautiful, more grotesque, all very old. He liked old blue china, did the owner of the house; he liked books more for their old calf and vellum bindings than to read. There were soldiers among his ancestors, for the walls were scattered here and there with swords and cases of medals, and over my head there was a framed scroll of honour.
    I glanced again at the man at the table, and realised suddenly why it was that I should have helped him in any case. It was because he was so like myself; he was just such a man as I might have been if things had gone a little differently. I might have gone to Oxford too. My father was a naval officer, my mother was a lady of the chorus in a Portsmouth music-hall. It didn’t last long. Soon after I was born there was trouble. I never learned what happened to my mother, but whatever it was my father died of it—of that and of malaria on the China Station. I was brought up all anyhow. That’s what I mean when I say that I would have helped him in any case. It might have been me; it would have been me if I had been the son of Mary instead of the son of Martha. I was Martha all over; I laughed quietly to myself as I thought of the only poet I had ever read:
    ‘It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock,
    It is their care