“No, no, it’s your husband’s turn,” Will replied good-naturedly.  “He wants a holiday more than I do.”

“Allchin want a ’oliday, sir!” exclaimed the woman.  “Why he never knows what to do with himself when he’s away from business.  He enjoys business, does Allchin.  Don’t you think of him, sir.  I never knew a man so altered since he’s been kept to regular work all the year round.  I used to dread the Sundays, and still more the Bank holidays when we were here first; you never knew who he’d get quarrelling with as soon as he’d nothing to do But now, sir, why I don’t believe you’ll find a less quarrelsome man anywhere, and he was saying for a joke only yesterday, that he didn’t think he could knock down even a coster, he’s so lost the habit.”

Will yielded and stole away into the mellowing sunshine.  He walked westward, till he found himself on the Embankment by Albert Bridge; here, after hesitating awhile, he took the turn into Oakley Street.  He had no thought of calling to see Miss Elvan; upon that he could not venture; but he thought it barely possible that he might meet with her in this neighbourhood, and such a meeting would have been pleasant.  Disappointed, he crossed the river, lingered a little in Battersea Park, came back again over the bridge,—­and, with a sudden leap of the heart, which all but made his whole body spring forward, saw a slim figure in grey moving by the parapet in front of Cheyne Walk.

They shook hands without speaking, very much as though they had met by appointment.

“Oh, these sunsets!” were Rosamund’s first words, when they had moved a few steps together.

“They used to be my delight when I lived there,” Will replied, pointing eastward.

“Show me just where it was, will you?”

They turned, and went as far as Chelsea Bridge, where Warburton pointed out the windows of his old flat.

“You were very happy there?” said Rosamund.

“Happy—?  Not unhappy, at all events.  Yes, in a way I enjoyed my life; chiefly because I didn’t think much about it.”

“Look at the sky, now.”

The sun had gone down in the duskily golden haze that hung above the river’s vague horizon.  Above, on the violet sky, stood range over range of pleated clouds, their hue the deepest rose, shading to purple in the folds.

“In other countries,” continued the soft, murmuring voice, “I have never seen a sky like that.  I love this London!”

“As I used to,” said Warburton, “and shall again.”

They loitered back past Chelsea Hospital, exchanging brief, insignificant sentences.  Then for many minutes neither spoke, and in this silence they came to the foot of Oakley Street, where again they stood gazing at the sky.  Scarcely changed in form, the western clouds had shed their splendour, and were now so coldly pale that one would have imagined them stricken with moonlight; but no moon had risen, only in a clear space of yet blue sky glistened the evening star.