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upon the silence like the crack of a whip; and all that they felt and hoped and imagined was alive, flowering yet hidden, triumphant yet furtive, the fruit and essence of their love cowering in this darkness, shielded from the world, from the harsh seamy face of all actuality, by the very aura it threw out and flung around them like some protecting cloak. They lay in dream, frightened yet exultant, throbbing with joy, and only the dim voice of fear struck upon their hearts: fear, flashed from the hidden fastness of their ecstasy, sounding its voice. All around them the mesh of reality, yet they were secure against it.
    It was the sudden tread of feet that roused them. Quietly they sat, confronting each other with expressions of bewilderment, of almost childlike wonder, as though they were questioning this sudden invasion of their dream.
    â€˜Quick. Let’s go.’
    She could feel his whole body shivering. He lifted her to her feet. ‘Oh, Sheila,’ he said, and once more held her to him. When the steps passed, they drew back into the darkness. ‘It’s this I hate,’ he exclaimed savagely. ‘It’s this I hate. What has happened?’
    â€˜Let’s go from here,’ she said. They smoothed down their clothes, and then ran from the shelter. As they passed under the light of the lamp, they seemed like wraiths fleeing through the darkness.
    â€˜What time is it?’ asked Peter. ‘I wonder? I’ve forgotten everything.’ He looked at a nickel-plated watch he carried. A quarter past ten. ‘But that doesn’t matter,’ he thought on reflection. ‘We must talk, Sheila. You must tell me everything that has happened. Then I’ll tell you all that’s happened to me.’
    Her arm was through his, and continually she turned her head and looked up into his face, as though she were endeavouring to discover every moment this thing, the illusive thing for which she searched. He had grown. He had changed considerably. No longer a boy—at least that shy, rough, awkward, and embarrassed boy she had seen just twelve months ago. Yet when she looked into his eyes she realized he had not changed. He was just the same, boyish, urgent, impatient, the same Peter who had been with her in Vulcan Street. Suddenly they came to a stop; a church stood in front of them. Peter tried its wooden gate. It was locked. He could see the shadows of rough wooden seats hard by the church wall. ‘In here,’ he said, lifting the woman in his arms, and depositing her somewhat clumsily on the other side of the gate. Then he swung his legs over and landed beside her. ‘If we are found here, there will be trouble.’ He pulled her towards the shadow of the wall. There they sat down. They clasped hands. ‘Well, Sheila,’ said Peter. ‘Here we can talk. Tell me, has anything happened?’
    As he said this he visualized clearly in his mind a scene that had taken place between them a year ago. It was the very first time he had seen her, this strange, lovely, fascinating, mysterious woman, wife to his own brother. He remembered that white arm—the vision of it sent a thrill through his body—he remembered it stealing round the door in order to lift a black dress from the back of the door. He had been playing a game of draughts with his brother. He saw his brother quite clearly too. Eleven years older than himself. Tall, broad, with a heavy, almost bovine countenance. Stubborn, honest to the point, dull-witted, ignorant, yet filled with ambition, a worker on the railway who hated work, who believed in only material things. Hard, arrogant, even a little brutish. Difficult to understand, hidden behind this wall of ignorance and pugnacity. Desperate to get on, to get free from the railway, and so from work. A radical without reason, a little jealous. A brother who, though brought up in an atmosphere of cloying, yet at the same time sincere, piety, had at one stroke