The feeling of despair, of helplessness, of desolation, which overcame Betty at that moment, remained with her as a memory to the end of her life. She was lost, as hopelessly lost as if she had been in the midst of a waste, though close at hand, perhaps only a few yards away, were her own father and brother, the latter no doubt searching for her. Dr Trevor would make the best of his way home with Cynthia, knowing his son to be as good a guide as himself. Poor old Miles! He would have a bad time of it when he arrived home alone;—yet he had not been to blame, for she herself had refused to take his arm before leaving the Hall. “It looked so silly!” She had intended to take it the moment they were in the street, but even that one moment had been too long. As she heard the stranger’s voice she turned in a panic of fear, and tried to drag her hand from his arm, but he held her tightly, saying, with an odd mixture of weariness and impatience—  
“Don’t be foolish! You can do no good by running away. You can never find your friends again in this blackness. Tell me where you want to go, and I’ll try to help you.”
 
Betty trembled helplessly.
 
“But I must—I must try! It’s a long way off—across the Park. Father is here, and my brother, and some friends. I’ll go back to the Hall—they may go there to look for me.”
 
“Look round!” said the strange voice, and Betty turned her head and stared in , for the great building had vanished as completely as had Miles himself, and nothing was to be seen but a wall of darkness. On every side she heard the movement of invisible forms, but their very unreality added to the sense of desolation which her. It was terrible even to think of venturing alone through the ghost-like ranks.
 
she clung more closely to her companion’s arm, and, as if recognising her feelings, his voice took a gentler, more tone.
 
“Don’t be afraid. I had a sister of my own once. You can trust me to see you safely home. I am afraid it is no earthly use trying to find your friends among all the thousands who are leaving the Hall. Better tell me where you live, so that we can get there as soon as the rest of your party, and save them needless alarm. Across the Park, you said? The gates will be closed, of course, and in any case that would be the last route to take. Tell me your exact address.”
 
“Brompton Square—we turn off at Stanhope Terrace, just past the Lancaster Gate Station. It is one of those squares lying between the Park and Edgware Road.”
 
“I know, I know. Its a long walk, but perhaps it will get as we go on. These fogs are often very local. Keep tight hold of my arm, please. If we are once separated, it might not be easy to meet again.”
 
“No, indeed! I could not have believed it was so easy to get lost. My brother was beside me one instant, the next—it was your coat-sleeve! I hope I did not shake it too violently! I was so nervous and frightened I did not think what I was doing.”
 
She laughed as she , her youthful spirits beginning to assert themselves again, as her confidence was assured. The face of her companion was unknown, but the tone of that quite, “Don’t be afraid, I had a sister of my own,” had put an end to her fears. Here was an adventure indeed—a full-fledged adventure! In she felt the joys of relating her experiences to a breathless audience in the schoolroom, and thrilled with importance. The stranger did not echo her laugh, however, but merely murmured a few words of conventional disclaimer and relapsed into silence. Betty could hear him sigh now and then as they made their way —slowly feeling the way from point to point through the , all-enveloping gloom. Sometimes a brief question to a link-boy would assure them that they were still on the right road; sometimes they wandered off the pavement and were suddenly aware of the champing of horses dangerously near at hand; sometimes for a minute or two they stood still, waiting to find a clue to their position; but through all the strange man preserved an unbroken silence, until Betty’s nerve gave way again, and she cried in , child-like fashion—
 
“Oh, please would you mind talking a little bit! I’m frightened. It’s like a dreadful nightmare, feeling one’s way through this darkness—and when you are so silent, I feel as if you were a ghost like all the rest, instead of a real live man.”
 
“I wish I were!” returned the stranger bitterly. Then recovering himself with an effort, “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I am afraid I have been very . To tell the truth, I was lost in my own thoughts when you came to me a few minutes ago, and I am afraid I had gone back to them, and forgotten that I had a companion!”
 
Forgotten! Forgotten her very existence! A young man rescues a beauteous maid—really and truly she had looked unusually well in all her smart Christmas farings—from a position of deadly , and straightway forgets her very existence! This part of the story, at least, must be omitted from the home . Betty pursed her lips in offended dignity, but in the end curiosity got the better of her , and she said tentatively—
 
“They must have been very nice thoughts!”
 
“Nice!”
 
The foolish girl’s word was repeated in a tone of bitterest .
 
“Interesting, then?”
 
“In so far as the last of anything is interesting, be the beginning what it may!”
 
“The last!” It was Betty’s turn to play the part of echo, as she stared in amazement at the shadowy form by her side. “How could they be your last thoughts? You seem quite well and strong. It isn’t possible to go on living and not to think.”
 
“No, it is not, and therefore when thoughts become —”
 
He stopped short, and Betty felt a thrill of foreboding. The strange silence, followed by the hopeless bitterness in the stranger’s voice, seemed to some trouble of overwhelming magnitude, and, viewed in that light, his last words admitted of only one conclusion. Life had become unbearable, and therefore he had to end it. Hitherto Betty had carelessly classed all suicides as mad; but this man was not mad; he was, on the contrary, and quiet in manner! He was only so hopelessly, helplessly that it did not seem possible to endure another day’s existence. Betty thrilled with a strange new feeling of and responsibility. The hidden strength of her nature, which had come to her as the result of being brought up to womanhood in a household to God and His Christ, broke through the of youthful , and came to the surface.
 
Her nervous fear dropped from her like a , and she was possessed by a burning to comfort and save. In the midst of the fog and darkness God had sent to her a great opportunity. She rose to it with a dignity which seemed to set the restless, self-centred Betty of an hour ago years behind. Her fingers on the stranger’s arm; she spoke in firm, quiet tones.
 
“I can guess what you mean! Forgive me for teasing you with my silly questions when you are in such trouble. Do you think you could tell me what it is? It seems a strange thing to ask, but I am no real person to-night. I am just a shadow that has come out of the fog. I have not even a face or a name. You might speak to me as safely as to the air itself, and it might be a relief to put it into words. It is so sometimes when one is in trouble.”
 
There was a moment’s silence, then—
 
“Thank you,” he said in a voice. “It’s kind of you to think of it. You might have me at once, as not fit to speak to a girl like you. You are only a girl, aren’t you? Your voice sounds very young.”
 
“Yes, only eighteen—nearly eighteen. But my father is a doctor, so I am always being brought near to sad things, and sometimes I feel quite old. I think I could understand if you told me your trouble.”
 
“Suppose it was not so much sorrow as sin? What then? What can you at eighteen—‘nearly eighteen’—know of that? You could not understand if I did speak.”
 
“Oh yes, I could. I sin myself—often!” cried Betty, with a swift remembrance of all those little things done or left which made the failure of her home life. “A girl living at home, with a father and a mother to look after her, has no temptation to any big thing, but it’s just as bad, if she is idle and selfish and ungrateful, and I am all three together many times over. I’d be too proud to say that to you if I saw your face and knew your name; but, as I said before, we are only shadows in a dream to-night. It doesn’t matter what we say. Tell me your trouble, and let me try to understand. It isn’t because I am curious—it isn’t really! Do you believe that?”
 
“Yes,” he said instantly, “I do! Poor child, you want to help; but I am past that. I have ruined my own life and the life of the man who has been my best friend. I have had my chance—a better chance than is given to most men—and I have made an utter failure of it. If I—went on, it would mean starting again from the very beginning, with the of failure to hinder me at every turn—a hopeless fight.”
 
“But,”—Betty’s voice nervously—“isn’t it cowardly to run away just when the fight is hardest? A soldier would be called a if he did that. And what would come afterwards? Do you believe that you have a right to take your own life?”
 
“You mean from a religious point of view. I’m afraid that’s out of my line. I have lost what little faith I had in these last few years. You believe in it all, of course—it’s natural for a girl—but to me the idea of a personal God is as unreal as a fairy tale. It does not touch my position.”
 
“But just suppose for a moment that it were true. Suppose He does exist, and has been longing to help you all this time—what then?” cried Betty earnestly, and her companion gave a short, laugh.
 
“It would have been easy enough for Him to have prevented all this trouble! I can see no help in the story of the last few years. Everything has gone against me. In the beginning I borrowed some money—of course, it’s a case of money—to help a friend who was in a tight fix. That was innocent enough. But when the time came round I could not repay the debt, and in my position it was fatally easy to help myself to what I needed. I called it just another loan. I was sure of repaying it before anything was discovered, but again it was impossible, for there were calls upon me which I had not expected. If I had been short in my accounts I should have lost my situation, and it was a handsome one for a man of my age. You won’t understand the details, but I began to speculate, to put off the evil hour, always hoping for a which would put everything right; but it never came. I was not helped, you see! Things went from bad to worse, until I could go on no longer. Then in despair I confessed the whole story to my friend—he is a near relation also, but that is by the way. He would not allow the family name to be disgraced; he paid up all that was due, and saved me the shame of , but even he could do no more. I am sent about my business—a in deed, though not in name. Incidentally............