THEY GO HOME 565

different ways. She spent the next few minutes getting
from the bus to the station, which was very crowded and
week-endy, and then to the place where she had arranged
to meet Mr. Golspie, which was on the departure side,
between the bookstall and that large clock with four
faces. Mr. Golspie was not to be seen. This did not
surprise her, for she was rather early. She was somewhat
relieved to find that he was not there. It left her with
a welcome breathing space. She was by no means single-
minded about this adventure.

It had been planned, if a few hasty and last-minute
questions and answers can be called planning, three
days before, on Tuesday night, which was the last time
she had seen him. He had not been to the office since
and she had no message from him, but that did not worry
her. She had a strong suspicion that he was going away
very soon, but she did not know when he would be going
and she did not believe that he knew. Last Tuesday,
just before they parted, he had asked her once again to
go away for the week-end with him, anywhere she
pleased, and this time, moved obscurely by many
different feelings and forces, something genuinely eager
and passionate in the man's voice, a sudden desire to
clutch at experience, to throw herself upon life, a con-
tempt for her qualms and misgivings and timidities, she
had agreed to go. An hotel on the Sussex coast she had
once seen was to be their destination, and the time and
meeting-place were hastily settled. Several times since,
she had been tempted to write to him or ring him up,
to say that she had changed her mind. Her pride, how-
ever, would not let her do this. She had said she would
go, and now she would carry it through. She had wanted
adventure, and though she would not have admitted it,