Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e

SAGE Publications, 2018

Test Bank for Gender Race and Class in Media A Critical

Reader 5th Edition Dines Humez and Yousman ISBN
1506380107 9781506380100
Full link download
Solution Manual:
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Part II: Representations of Gender, Race, and Class

Test Bank
Multiple Choice

1. Cultural studies insist that culture must be studied within the social relations and
system. This radical hope, triggered by President Barack Obama, ushered in a period of
bi• and transracial art. This probed .
A. the possibility that we really had transcended race but also ridiculed this hope with an
acid humor
B. the notion that homophobic ideas were weakening and allowing the country to grow
in new ways
C. the idea that Obama was responsible for a new “renaissance” of art
D. the possibility that we as a country had overcome isolationism but also teased the
idea with a political discourse
Ans: A
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Article 10

2. The “new” Atticus character from “Go Set a Watchman” was a betrayal of White
liberal idealism, feeding a suspicion that idealism was less than absolute. In other
words, the author is saying .
A. that Atticus had been secretly racist all along, and people had falsely identified with
him
B. that ideas such as White liberal idealism could be twisted and turned to become
something different as people change
C. that it could suddenly, randomly turn against the people it purported to help
D. that idealism might not be as strong of a position when looked back on
Ans: C
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Article 10

3. In Andrew Solomon’s landmark 2012 book about parenting and how children
differentiate themselves, he makes a distinction between vertical and horizontal identity.
Traits and values you don’t share with parents, sometimes because of genetic mutation,
sometimes through the choice of a different social world, define .
A. authentic identity
B. vertical identity
 Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e

SAGE Publications, 2018

C. asymmetrical identity
D. horizontal identity
Ans: D
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: Article 1
 Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e

SAGE Publications, 2018

4. In this article, the author mentions that . The most important economic
function came from television’s role as an instrument of legitimation for transformations
in values initiated by the new economic imperatives of postwar America.
A. ideologies are not the product of individual consciousness or intention
B. ideologies are the by-product of consciousness and authenticity
C. ideologies are often misunderstood as concepts of morality
D. ideologies never offer more than a glimpse at the individuals who make the
statements
Ans: A
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Article 11

5. “Primitivism” is defined by .
A. the dynamic closeness of society to the environment
B. the fixed proximity of such people to nature
C. the focus of some cultures on aspects of spirituality and nature
D. society’s view of humans impact on the global ecosystem
Ans: B
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Article 11

6. When the author mentions the apparently naturalized representations of events and
situations relating to race, whether “factual” or “fictional,” which have racist premises
and propositions inscribed in them as a set of unquestioned assumptions, he is referring
to .
A. intentional racism
B. ideological based morality
C. underrepresentation of low-income members of society
D. inferential racism
Ans: D
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: Article 11

7. The term redskin is a problem, and its lingering presence undermines the pursuit of
by American Indians.
A. historical acceptance and acknowledgment
B. respect and understanding
C. equality, inclusion, and empowerment
D. equity
Ans: C
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Article 12

8. The issue has stressed indigenous support, highlighting the importance of public
opinion polls as well as endorsements of the Washington Redskins football team by
 Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e

SAGE Publications, 2018

prominent individuals and reservation communities. Importantly, the defense is about

more than Indianness. In particular, it turns in spoken and unspoken ways on .
A. Whiteness
B. American culture
C. organized sports
D. religion
Ans: A
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Article 12

9. As the article makes clear, the ongoing struggle lends itself to binary thinking, moral
declarations, and public denunciations. To many, either the moniker is respectful or it is
racist. It is a stereotype or not. Such arguments .
A. make the issue easier to understand and therefore more efficient
B. ignore the underlying religious messages of the conflict
C. fail to specify the real issue at hand and instead make it more confusing
D. simplify the conflict and its cultural import
Ans: D
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Article 12

10. Whenever women’s bodies are deemed to be excessive--“too fat, too mouthy, too
old, too dirty, too pregnant, too sexual (or not sexual enough) for the norms of
conventional gender representation”--Rowe argues that .
A. gender hierarchies are strengthened
B. gender hierarchies are threatened
C. gender hierarchies are the culprit
D. gender hierarchies are not involved or affected
Ans: B
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Article 13

11. The author mentions that “pornographic eroticism” is particularly prominent in media
coverage of which sport?
A. soccer
B. lacrosse
C. tennis
D. basketball
Ans: C
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Article 13

12. The article’s study shows that despite their outstanding sporting achievements, the
Williams sisters have been subjected to the “gender-specific images that deem black
bodies as less desirable if not downright ugly,” that is, .
 Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 5e

SAGE Publications, 2018

A. their bodies are seen as superior in athletic ability but not in physical beauty
B. they have been subjugated as being only fit for athletic competition
C. they have been separated from other payers due to race
D. their bodies have been positioned by the “sexually grotesque.”
Ans: D
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: Article 13

13. Orientalism, Edward Said (1978) wrote, is .

A. a conceptualization of the Orient, or East, which places it in opposition to the
Occident or West
B. identifying with Asian countries or cultures
C. being of or from an Asian country, and practicing a culturally authentic lifestyle, but
no longer living there
D. the act of traveling, moving, or otherwise leaving “Western” civilization and
immersing oneself in oriental cultures
Ans: A
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Article 14

14. The tension between accessibility and novelty, or strangeness, can serve as both a
site of resistance for female artists to wage “sex as a weapon” in the fight against
gender stereotyping as well as .
A. a space where new ideas about sexual roles and what is not appropriate male sexual
behavior are identified
B. a space where stale ideas about gender roles and what is appropriate female sexual
behavior are reified
C. a space where old ideas about social values are broken down and rebuilt in new
cultural subcategories
D. a space where gender roles are reinforced
Ans: B
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Article 14

15. Katy Perry, the framing of men of color in her video, and her cultural appropriation
matter because they reach a broad audience and serve to reinforce a racist and
prejudicial understanding of the world that only sharpens dichotomies. To overlook the
power of popular media because it is fluff is to .
A. dismiss Katy Perry as a pop culture “has-been”
B. decide what that media tells a huge portion of the public is unimportant
C. instill a sense of underlying prejudice when listening to pop music
D. decide that some forms media is more influential on audiences than others
Ans: B
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Another document from Scribd.com that is
random and unrelated content:
 He said, half inarticulate: "What, Clare! You know that I love you?"
"Of course I do."
(Great God, what was this thrill that was coming over him, this
tremendous, invincible longing, this molten restlessness, this yearning
for zest in life, for action, starry enthusiasm, resistless plunging
movement!)
"And you don't mind?"
"I do mind. That's why I didn't want you to tell me.
"But what difference has telling you made, if you knew already?"
"No difference to me. But it will to you. You'll love me more now that
you know I know."
"Shall I?" His query was like a child's.
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"I know. That's all."
They were standing there together in the dark lobby. His heart was
wildly beating, and hers—he wondered if it were as calm as her voice.
And then all suddenly he felt her arms upon him, and she, Clare—Clare!
—the reticent, always controlled Clare!—was crying, actually crying in
his arms that stupidly, clumsily held her. And Clare's voice, unlike
anything that it had ever been in his hearing before, was talking—talking
and crying at once—accomplishing the most curious and un-Clare-like
feats.
"Oh, my dear, dear man—why did you tell me? Why did you make
everything so hard for me and yourself?—Oh, God—let me be weak for
just one little minute—only one little minute!—I love you, Kenneth
Speed, just as you love me—we fit, don't we, as if the world had been
made for us as well as we for ourselves! Oh, what a man I could have
made of you, and what a woman you could have made of me! Dearest,
I'm so sorry.... When you've gone I shall curse myself for all this.... Oh,
my dear, my dear...." She sobbed passionately against his breast, and
then, suddenly escaping from his arms, began to speak in a voice more
like her usual one. "You must go now. There's nothing we can do. Please,
please go now. No, no—don't kiss me.... Just go.... And let's forgive each
other for this scene.... Go, please go.... Good-night.... No, I won't listen
to you.... I want you to go.... Good night.... You haven't said a word, I
know, and I don't want you to. There's nothing to say at all. Good
night.... Good night...."
He found himself outside in High Street as in some strange
incomprehensible dream....

CHAPTER FIVE

All the way back to Millstead joy was raging in his heart, trampling
down all his woes and defying him to be miserable. Nothing in the world
—not his unhappiness with Helen, or the hatred that Millstead had for
him, or the perfidy of his own soul—could drive out that crowning,
overmastering triumph—the knowledge that Clare loved him. For the
moment he saw no difficulties, no dangers, no future that he could not
easily bear. Even if he were never to see Clare again, he felt that the
knowledge that she loved him would be an adequate solace to his mind
for ever. He was happy—deliriously, eternally happy. Helen's silences,
the school's ragging, the Head's sinister coldness, were bereft of all their
powers to hurt him; he had a secret armour, proof against all assault. It
seemed to him that he could understand how the early Christians,
fortified by some such inward armour, had walked calm-eyed and happy
into the arena of lions.
He did not go straight back to the school, but took a detour along the
Deepersdale road; he wanted to think, and hug his happiness, and
eventually calm it before seeing Helen. Then he wondered what sort of
an explanation he should give her of his absence; for, of course, she
would have received by this time full accounts of the ragging. In the end
he decided that he had better pretend to have been knocked a little silly
by the blow on his head and to have taken a walk into the country
without any proper consciousness of what he was doing.
He returned to Lavery's about eleven o'clock, admitting himself by his
own private key. In the corridor leading to his own rooms, Helen
suddenly ran into his arms imploring him to tell her if he was hurt, where
he had been, what had happened, and so on.
He said, speaking as though he had hardly recovered full possession
of his senses: "I—I don't know.... Something hit me.... I think I've been
walking about for a long time.... I'm all right now, though."
Her hands were feeling the bandages round his head.
"Who bandaged you?"
"I—I don't—I don't know." (After all, 'I don't know' was always a safe
answer.)
She led him into the red-tinted drawing-room. As he entered it he
suddenly felt the onrush of depression, as if, once within these four
walls, half the strength of his armour would be gone.
"We must have Howard to see you to-morrow morning," she said, her
voice trembling. "It was absolutely disgraceful! I could hear them from
here—I wondered whatever was happening." And she added, with just
the suspicion of tartness: "I'd no idea you'd ever let them rag you like
that."
"Let them rag me?" he exclaimed. Then, remembering his part, he
stammered: "I—I don't know what—what happened. Something—
somebody perhaps—hit me, I think—that was all. It wasn't—it wasn't the
ragging. I could have—managed that."
Suddenly she said: "Whose mackintosh is that you're wearing?"
The tone of her voice was sharp, acrid, almost venomous.
He started, felt himself blushing, but hoped that in the reddish glow it
would not be observed. "I—I don't know," he stammered, still playing
for safety.
"You don't know?—Then we'll find out if we can. Perhaps there's a
name inside it."
She helped him off with it, and he, hoping devoutly that there might
not be a name inside it, watched her fascinatedly. He saw her examine
the inside of the collar and then throw the coat on the floor.
"So you've been there again," was all that she said. Once again he
replied, maddeningly: "I—I don't know."
 She almost screamed at him: "Don't keep telling me you don't know!
You're not ill—there's nothing the matter with you at all—you're just
pretending! You couldn't keep order in the Big Hall, so you ran away like
a great coward and went to that woman! Did you or didn't you? Answer
me!"
Never before, he reflected, had she quarrelled so shrilly and
rancorously; hitherto she had been restrained and rather pathetic, but
now she was shouting at him like a fishwife. It was a common domestic
bicker; the sort of thing that gets a good laugh on the music-hall stage.
No dignity in it—just sordid heaped-up abuse. "Great coward"—"That
woman"—!
He dropped his lost-memory pose, careless, now, whether she found
out or not.
"I did go to Clare," he said, curtly. "And that's Clare's raincoat. Also
Clare bandaged me—rather well, you must admit. Also, I've drunk
Clare's coffee and warmed myself at Clare's fire. Is there any other
confession you'd like to wring out of me?"
"Is there indeed? You know that best yourself."
"Perhaps you think I've been flirting with Clare?"
(As he said it he thought: Good God, why am I saying such things?
It's only making the position worse for us both.)
"I've no doubt she would if you'd given her half a chance."
The bitterness of her increased his own.
"Or is it that I would if she'd given me half a chance? Are you quite
sure which?"
"I'm sure of nothing where either of you are concerned. As for Clare,
she's been a traitor. Right from the time of first meeting you she's played
a double game, deceiving me and yourself as well. She's ruined our lives
together, she's spoilt our happiness and she won't be satisfied till she's
wrecked us both completely. I detest her—I loathe her—I loathe her
more than I've ever loathed anybody in the world. Thank God I know her
now—at least I shall never trust her any more. And if you do, perhaps
some day you'll pay as I've paid. Do you think she's playing straight with
you any more than she has with me? Do you think you can trust her? Are
you taken in?"
 The note of savage scorn in her voice made him reply coldly: "You've
no cause to talk about taking people in. If ever I've been taken in, as you
call it, it was by you, not by Clare!"
He saw her go suddenly white. He was half-sorry he had dealt her the
blow, but as she went on to speak, her words, fiercer than ever now,
stung him into gladness.
"All right! Trust her and pay for it! I could tell you things if I wished
—but I'm not such a traitor to her as she's been to me. I could tell you
things that would make you gasp, you wretched little fool!"
"They wouldn't make me gasp; they'd make me call you a damned
liar. Helen, I can understand you hating Clare; I can understand, in a
sense, the charge of traitor that you bring against her; but when you hint
all sorts of awful secrets about her I just think what a petty, spiteful heart
you must have! You ruin your own case by actions like that. They sicken
me."
"Very well, let them sicken you. You'll not be more sickened than I
am. But perhaps you think I can't do more than hint. I can and I will,
since you drive me to it. Next time you pay your evening visits to Clare
ask her what she thinks of Pritchard!"
"Pritchard! Pritchard!—What's he got to do with it?"
"Ask Clare."
"Why should I ask her?"
"Because, maybe, on the spur of the moment she wouldn't be able to
think of any satisfactory lie to tell you."
He felt anger rising up within him. He detested Pritchard, and the
mention of his name in connection with Clare infuriated him. Moreover,
his mind, always quick to entertain suspicion, pictured all manner of
disturbing fancies, even though his reason rejected them absolutely. He
trusted Clare; he would believe no evil of her. And yet, the mere thought
of it was a disturbing one.
"I wouldn't insult her by letting her think I listened to such gossip," he
said, rather weakly.
There followed a longish pause; he thinking of what she had said and
trying to rid himself of the discomfort of associating Pritchard with
Clare, and she watching him, mockingly, as if conscious that her words
had taken root in his mind.
Then she went on: "So now you can suspect somebody else instead of
me. And while we're on the subject of Pritchard let me tell you
something else."
"Tell me!" The mere thought that there was anything else to tell in
which Pritchard was concerned was sufficient to give his voice a note of
peremptory harshness.
"I'm going to leave you."
"So you've said before."
"This time I mean it."
"Well?"
"And you can divorce me."
He stamped his foot with irritation. "Don't be ridiculous, Helen. A
divorce is absolutely out of the question."
"Why? Do you think we can go on like this any longer?"
"That's not the point. The point is that nothing in the circumstances
provides any grounds for a divorce."
"So that we've got to go on like this then, eh?"
"Not like this, I hope. I still hope—that some day—"
She interrupted him angrily. "You still hope! How many more secret
visits to Clare do you think you'll make,—how many more damnable lies
do you think you'll need to tell me—before you leave off still hoping?
You hateful little hypocrite! Why don't you be frank with me and
yourself and acknowledge that you love Clare? Why don't you run off
with her like a man?"
He said: "So you think that's what a man would do, eh?"
"Yes."
"One sort of a man, perhaps. Only I'm not that sort."
"I wish you were."
"Possibly. I also wish that you were another sort of woman, but it's
rather pointless wishing, isn't it?"
 "Everything is rather pointless that has to do with you and me."
Suddenly he said: "Look here, Helen. Let's stop this talk. Just listen a
minute while I try to tell you how I'm situated. You and I are married—"
"Really?"
"Oh, for God's sake, don't be stupid about it! We're married, and we've
got to put up with it for better, for worse. I visit Clare in an entirely
friendly way, though you mayn't believe it, and your suspicions of me
are altogether unfounded. All the same, I'm prepared to give up her
friendship, if that helps you at all. I'm prepared to leave Millstead with
you, get a job somewhere else, and start life afresh. We have been happy
together, and I daresay in time we shall manage to be happy again. We'd
emigrate, if you liked. And the baby—our baby—our baby that is to be
—"
She suddenly rushed up to him with her arms raised and struck him
with both fists on his mouth. "Oh, for Christ's sake, stop that sort of talk!
I could kill you when you try to lull me into happiness with those sticky,
little sentimental words! Our baby! Good God, am I to be made to
submit to you because of that? And all the time you talk of it you're
thinking of another woman! You're not livable with! Something's
happened to you that's made you cruel and hateful—you're not the man
that I married or that I ever would have married. I loathe and detest you
—you're rotten—rotten to the very root!"
He said, idly: "Do you think so?"
She replied, more restrainedly: "I've never met anybody who's altered
so much as you have in the last six months. You've sunk lower and lower
—in every way, until now—everybody hates you. You're simply a ruin."
Still quietly he said: "Yes, that's true." And then watching to see the
effect that his words had upon her, he added: "Clare said so."
"What!" she screamed, frenzied again. "Yes, she knows! She knows
how she's ruined you! She knows better than anybody! And she taunted
you with it! How I loathe her!"
"And me too, eh?"
She made no answer.
Then, more quietly than ever, he said: "Yes, Clare knows what a
failure I've been and how low I've sunk. But she doesn't think it's due to
her, and neither do I."
He would not say more than that. He wondered if she would perceive
the subtle innuendo which he half-meant and half did not mean; which
he would not absolutely deny, and yet would not positively affirm; which
he was prepared to hint, but only vaguely, because he was not perfectly
sure himself.
 Whether or not she did perceive it he was not able to discover. She
was silent for some while and then said: "Well, I repeat what I said—I'm
going to leave you so that you can get a divorce."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You can leave me if you wish, but I shall not get a divorce."
"Why not?"
"Because for one thing I shan't be able to."
"And why do you think you won't?"
"Because," he replied, coldly, "the law will not give me my freedom
merely because we have lived a cat-and-dog life together. The law
requires that you should not only leave me, but that you should run away
with another man and commit misconduct with him."
She nodded. "Yes, and that is what I propose to do."
"What!"
A curious silence ensued. He was utterly astounded, horrified, by her
announcement; she was smiling at him, mocking his astonishment. He
shouted at her, fiercely: "What's that!"
She said: "I intend to do what you said."
"What's that! You what?"
"I intend to do what you said. I shall run away with another man and
commit misconduct with him!"
"God!" he exclaimed, clenching his teeth, and stamping the floor. "It's
absurd. You can't. You wouldn't dare. Oh, it's impossible. Besides—good
God, think of the scandals! Surely I haven't driven you to that! Who
would you run away with?" His anger began to conquer his
astonishment. "You little fool, Helen, you can't do it! I forbid you! Oh,
Lord, what a mess we're in! Tell me, who's the man you're thinking of! I
demand to know. Who is he? Give me his name!"
And she said, cuttingly: "Pritchard."
On top of his boiling fury she added: "We've talked it over and he's
quite agreed to—to oblige me in the matter, so you see I really do mean
things this time, darling Kenneth!"
 And she laughed at him.

II

Out of Lavery's he plunged and into the cold, frosty night of Milner's.
He had not stayed to hear the last echoes of her laughter dying away; he
was mad with fury; he was going to kill Pritchard. He ran up the steps of
Milner's and gave the bell a ferocious tug. At last the porter came, half
undressed, and by no means too affable to such a late visitor. "I want to
see Mr. Pritchard on very important business," said Speed. "Will it take
long, sir?" asked the porter, and Speed answered: "I can't say how long it
will take."—"Then," said the porter, "perhaps you wouldn't mind letting
yourself out when you've finished. I'll give you this key till to-morrow
morning—I've got a duplicate of my own." Speed took the key, hardly
comprehending the instructions, and rushed along the corridor to the
flight of steps along the wall of which was printed the name: "Mr. H.
Pritchard."
Arrived on Pritchard's landing he groped his way to the sitting-room
door and entered stealthily. All was perfectly still, except for one or two
detached snores proceeding from the adjoining dormitory. In the
starshine that came through the window he could see, just faintly, the
outline of Pritchard's desk, and Pritchard's armchair, and Pritchard's
bookshelves, and Pritchard's cap and gown hung upon the hook on the
door of Pritchard's bedroom. His bedroom! He crept towards it, turned
the handle softly, and entered. At first he thought the bed was empty, but
as he listened he could hear breathing—steady, though faint. He began to
be ever so slightly frightened. Being in the room alone with Pritchard
asleep was somehow an unnerving experience; like being alone in a
room with a dead body. For, perhaps, Pritchard would be a dead body
before the dawn rose. And again he felt frightened because somebody
might hear him and come up and think he was in there to steal something
—Pritchard's silver wrist-watch or his rolled gold sleeve links, for
instance. Somehow Speed was unwilling to be apprehended for theft
when his real object was only murder.
 He struck a match to see if it really was Pritchard in bed; it would be a
joke if he murdered somebody else by mistake, wouldn't it? ...
Yes, it was Pritchard.
Then Speed, looking down at him, realised that he did not hate him so
much for his disgraceful overtures to Helen as for the suspicion of some
sinister connection with Clare.
Suddenly Pritchard opened his eyes.
"Good God, Speed!" he cried, blinking and sitting up in bed.
"Whatever's the matter! What's—what's happened? Anything wrong?"
And Speed, startled out of his wits by the sudden awakening, fell
forward across Pritchard's bed and fainted.
So that he did not murder Pritchard after all....

III

Vague years seemed to pass by, and then out of the abyss came the
voice of the Head booming: "Um, yes, Mr. Speed ... I think, in the
circumstances, you had better—um, yes, take a holiday at the seaside....
You are very clearly in a highly dangerous—um—nervous state ... and I
will gladly release you from the rest of your term's duties.... No doubt a
rest will effect a great and rapid improvement.... My wife recommends
Seacliffe—a pleasant little watering-place—um, yes, extremely so.... As
for the incidents during preparation last evening, I think we need not—
um—discuss them at present.... Oh yes, most certainly—as soon as
convenient—in fact, an early train to-morrow morning would not
incommode us.... I—um, yes—I hope the rest will benefit you ... oh yes,
I hope so extremely...."
And he added: "Helen is—um—a good nurse."
Then something else of no particular importance, and then: "I shall
put Mr.—um—Pritchard in charge of—um—Lavery's while you are
absent, so you need not—um—worry about your House...."
 Speed said, conquering himself enough to smile: "Oh, no, I shan't
worry. I shan't worry about anything."
"Um—no, I hope not. I—I hope not.... My wife and I—um—we both
hope that you will not—um—worry...."
Then Speed noticed, with childish curiosity, that the Head was attired
in a sky-blue dressing-gown and pink-striped pyjamas....
Where was he, by the way? He looked round and saw a tiny gas-jet
burning on a wall bracket; near him was a bed ... Pritchard's bed, of
course. But why was the Head in Pritchard's bedroom, and why was
Clanwell there as well?
Clanwell said sepulchrally: "Take things easy, old man. I thought
something like this would happen. You've been overdoing it."
"Overdoing what?" said Speed.
"Everything," replied Clanwell.
The clock on the dressing-table showed exactly midnight.
"Good-bye," said Speed.
Clanwell said: "I'm coming over with you to Lavery's."
The Head departed, booming his farewell. "Good night.... My—um—
my best wishes, Speed ... um, yes—most certainly.... Good night."
Then Pritchard said: "Perhaps I can sleep again now. Enough to give
me a breakdown, I should think. Good-night, Speed. And good luck. I
wish they'd give me a holiday at Seacliffe.... Good night, Clanwell."
As they trod over the soft turf of the quadrangle they heard old
Millstead bells calling the hour of midnight.
Speed said: "Clanwell, do you remember I once told you I could write
a novel about Millstead?"
"Yes, I remember it."
"Well, I might have done it then. But I couldn't now. When I first
came here Millstead was so big and enveloping—it nearly swallowed me
up. But now—it's all gone. I might be living in a slum tenement for all it
means to me. Where's it all gone to?"
"You're ill, Speed. It'll come back when you're better."
 "Yes, but when shall I be better?"
"When you've been away and had a rest."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. You don't suppose you're dying, do you?"
"No. But there are times when I could suppose I'm dead."
"Nonsense, man. You're too morbid. Why don't you go for a sea
voyage? Pull yourself together, man, and don't brood."
Clanwell added: "I'm damned sorry for you—what can I do? Would
you like me to come in Lavery's with you for a while? You're not
nervous of being alone, are you?"
"Oh no. And besides, I shan't be alone. My wife's there."
"Of course, of course. Stupid of me. I was for the moment forgetting
—forgetting—"
"That I was married, eh?"
"No, no, not exactly—I had just forgotten—well, you know how even
the most obvious things sometimes slip the memory.... Well, here you
are. Have you the key? And you'll be all right, eh? Sure? Well, now, take
a long rest and get better, won't you? Good night—Good night—sure
you're all right? Good night!"
Clanwell raced back across the turf to his own House and Speed
admitted himself to Lavery's and sauntered slowly down the corridor to
his room.
Helen was sitting in front of the fire, perfectly still and quiet.
He said: "Helen!"
"Well!" She spoke without the slightest movement of her head or
body.
"We've got to go away from Millstead."
He wondered how she would take it. It never occurred to him that she
was prepared. She answered: "Yes. Mother's been over here to tell me all
about it. We're going to Seacliffe in the morning. Catching the 9.5. What
were you doing in Pritchard's bedroom?"
"Didn't they tell you?" he enquired sarcastically.
 "How could they? They didn't know. They found you fainting across
the bed, and Pritchard said he woke up and found you staring at him."
"And you can't guess why I went there?"
"I suppose you wanted to ask him if it were true that he and I were
going away together."
"No, not quite. I wanted to murder him so that it could never be true."
"What!"
"Yes. What I said."
She made no answer, and after a long pause he said: "You're not in
love with Pritchard, are you?"
She replied sorrowfully: "Not a little bit. In fact, I rather dislike him.
You're the only person I love."
"When you're not hating me, eh?"
"Yes, that's right. When I'm not hating you."
Then after a second long pause he suddenly decided to make one last
effort for the tranquillising of the future.
"Helen," he began pleadingly, "Can't you stop hating me? Is it too late
to begin everything afresh? Can't we——"
Then he stopped. All the eloquence went out of him suddenly, like the
air out of a suddenly pricked balloon. His brain refused to frame the
sentences of promise and supplication that he had intended. His brain
was tired—utterly tired. He felt he did not care whether Helen stayed
with him or not, whether she ran away with Pritchard or not, whether his
own relationship with her improved, worsened, or ceased altogether,
whether anything in the world happened or did not happen. All he
wanted was peace—peace from the eternal torment of his mind.
She suddenly put her arms round him and kissed him passionately.
"We will begin again, Kenneth," she said eagerly. "We will be happy
again, won't we? Oh yes, I know we will. When we get to Seacliffe we'll
have a second honeymoon together, what do you think, darling?"
"Rather," he replied, with simulated enthusiasm. In reality he felt sick
—physically sick. Something in the word "honeymoon" set his nerves on
edge. Poor little darling Helen—why on earth had he ever married such a
creature? They would never be happy together, he was quite certain of
that. And yet ... well, anyway, they had to make the best of it. He smiled
at her and returned her kisses, and then suggested packing the trunk in
readiness for the morning.

CHAPTER SIX

In the morning there arrived a letter from Clare. He guessed it from

the postmark, and was glad that she had the tact to type the address on
the envelope. When he tore it open he saw that the letter was also
typewritten, and signed merely "C. H.", so that he was able to read it at
the breakfast-table without any fears of Helen guessing. It was a curious
sensation, that of reading a letter from Clare with Helen so near to him,
and so unsuspecting.
It ran:—

"DEAR KENNETH SPEED—As I told you last night I feel

thoroughly disgusted with myself—I knew I should. I'm very sorry I
acted as I did, though of course everything I said was true. If you
take my advice you'll take Helen right away and never come near
Millstead any more. Begin life with her afresh, and don't expect it to
be too easy. As for me—you'd better forget if you can. We mustn't
ever see each other again, and I think we had better not write, either.
I really mean that and I hope you won't send me any awfully
pathetic reply as it will only make things more awkward than they
are. There was a time when you thought I was hard-hearted; you
must try and think so again, because I really don't want to have
anything more to do with you. It sounds brutal, but it isn't, really.
You have still time to make your life a success, and the only way to
do it in the present circumstances is to keep away from my evil
influence. So good-bye and good luck. Yours—C.H."—"P.S. If you
ever do return to Millstead you won't find me there."

He was so furious that he tore the letter up and flung it into the fire.
 "What is it?" enquired Helen.
He forced himself to reply: "Oh, only a tradesman's letter."
She answered, with vague sympathy: "Everybody's being perfectly
horrid, aren't they?"
"Oh, I don't care," he replied, shrugging his shoulders and eating
vigorously. "I don't care a damn for the lot of them."
She looked at him in thoughtful silence.
Towards the end of the meal he had begun to wonder if it had been
Clare's object to put him in just that mood of fierce aggressiveness and
truculence. He wished he had not thrown the letter into the fire. He
would like to have re-read it, and to have studied the phrasing with a
view to more accurate interpretation.
That was about seven-thirty in the morning. The bells were just
beginning to ring in the dormitories and the floors above to creak with
the beginnings of movement. It was a dull morning in early March, cold,
but not freezing; the sky was full of mist and clouds, and very likely it
would rain later. As he looked out of the window, for what might be the
last time in his life, he realised that he was leaving Millstead without a
pang. It astonished him a little. There was nothing in the place that he
still cared for. All his dreams were in ruins, all his hopes shattered, all his
enthusiasms burned away; he could look out upon Millstead, that had
once contained them all, without love and without malice. It was nothing
to him now; a mere box of bricks teeming with strangers. Even the terror
of it had vanished; it stirred him to no emotion at all. He could leave it as
casually as he could a railway station at which he had stopped en route.
And when he tried, just by way of experiment, to resuscitate for a
moment some of the feelings he had once had, he was conscious only of
immense mental strain, for something inside him that was sterile and that
ached intolerably. He remembered how, on the moonlight nights of his
first term, his eyes would fill with tears as he saw the great window-lit
blocks of Milner's and Lavery's rising into the pale night. He
remembered it without passion and without understanding. He was so
different now from what he had been then. He was older now; he was
tired; his emotions had been wrung dry; some of him was a little
withered.
 An hour later he left Millstead quite undramatically by the 9.5. The
taxi came to the door of Lavery's at ten minutes to nine, while the school
was in morning chapel; as he rode away and out of the main gates he
could hear, faintly above the purr of the motor, the drone of two hundred
voices making the responses in the psalms. It did not bring to his heart a
single pang or to his eye a single tear. Helen sat beside him and she, too,
was unmoved; but she had never cared for Millstead. She was telling him
about Seacliffe.
As the taxi bounded into the station yard she said: "Oh, Kenneth, did
you leave anything for Burton?"
"No," he answered, curtly.
"You ought to have done," she said.
That ended their conversation till they were in the train.
As he looked out of the window at the dull, bleak fen country he
wondered how he could ever have thought it beautiful. Mile after mile of
bare, grey-green fields, ditches of tangled reeds, forlorn villages, trees
that stood solitary in the midst of great plains. He saw every now and
then the long, flat road along which he had cycled many times to
Pangbourne. And in a little while Pangbourne itself came into view, with
its huge dominating cathedral round which he had been wont formerly to
conduct little enthusiastic parties of Millsteadians; Pangbourne had
seemed to him so pretty and sunlit in those days, but now all was dull
and dreary, and the mist was creeping up in swathes from the fenlands.
Pangbourne station...
Again he wished that he had not burnt Clare's letter.
At noon he was at Seacliffe, booking accommodation at the Beach
Hotel.

II

"Heaven knows what we are going to do with ourselves here," he

remarked to Helen during lunch.
"You've got to rest," replied Helen.
 He went on to a melancholy mastication of bread. "So far as I can see,
we're the only visitors in the entire hotel."
"Well, Kenneth, March is hardly the season, is it?"
"Then why did we come here? I'd much rather have gone to town,
where there's always something happening. But a seaside-place in
winter!—is there anything in the world more depressing?"
"There's nobody in the world more depressing than you are yourself,"
she answered tartly. "It isn't my fault we've come here in March. It isn't
my fault we've come here at all. And what good would London have
done for you? It's rest you want, and you'll get it here."
"Heavens, yes—I'll get it all right."
After a silence he smiled and said: "I'm sorry, Helen, for being such a
wet blanket. And you're quite right, it isn't your fault—not any of it.
What can we do this afternoon?"
"We can have a walk along the cliffs," she answered.
He nodded and took up a week-old copy of the Seacliffe Gazette.
"That's what we'll do," he said, beginning to read.
So that afternoon they had a walk along the cliffs.
In fact there was really nothing at all to do in Seacliffe during the
winter season except to take a walk along the cliffs. Everything wore an
air of depression—the dingy rain-sodden refreshment kiosks, the
shuttered bandstand, the rusting tram rails on the promenade, along
which no trams had run since the preceding October, the melancholy pier
pavilion, forlornly decorated with the tattered advertisements of last
season's festivities. Nothing remained of the town's social amenities but
the cindered walk along the cliff edges, and this, except for patches of
mud and an absence of strollers, was much the same as usual. Speed and
Helen walked vigorously, as people do on the first day of their holidays
—grimly determined to extract every atom of nourishment out of the
much-advertised air. They climbed the slope of the Beach hill, past the
gaunt five-storied basemented boarding-houses, past the yachting club-
house, past the marine gardens, past the rows of glass shelters, and then
on to the winding cinder-path that rose steeply to the edge of the cliffs.
Meanwhile the mist turned to rain and the sea and the sky merged
together into one vast grey blur without a horizon.
Then they went back to the Beach Hotel for tea.
 Then they read the magazines until dinner-time, and after dinner,
more magazines until bedtime.
The next day came the same routine again; walk along the cliffs in the
morning; walk along the cliffs in the afternoon; tea; magazines; dinner;
magazines; bed. Speed discovered in the hotel a bookcase entirely filled
with cheap novels that had been left behind by previous visitors. He read
some of them until their small print gave him a headache. Helen revelled
in them. In the mornings, by way of a variant from the cliff walk, they
took to sitting on the windless side of the municipal shelters, absorbed in
the novels. It was melancholy, and yet Speed felt with some satisfaction
that he was undoubtedly resting, and that, on the whole, he was enduring
it better than he had expected.

III

Then slowly there grew in him again the thought of Clare. It was as if,
as soon as he gained strength at all, that strength should bring with it
turmoil and desire, so that the only peace that he could ever hope for was
the joyless peace of exhaustion. The sharp sea-salt winds that brought
him health and vigour brought him also passion, passion that racked and
tortured him into weakness again.
He wished a thousand times that he had not burned Clare's letter. He
felt sure that somewhere in it there must have been a touch of verbal
ambiguity or subtlety that would have given him some message of hope;
he could not believe that she had sent him merely a letter of dismissal. In
one sense, he was glad that he had burned the letter, for the impossibility
of recovering it made it easier for him to suppose whatever he wished
about it. And whatever he wished was really only one wish in the world,
a wish of one word: Clare. He wanted her, her company, her voice, her
movements around him, the sight of her, her quaint perplexing soul that
so fitted in with his own, her baffling mysterious understandings of him
that nobody else had ever had at all. He wanted her as a sick man longs
for health; as if he had a divine right to her, and as if the withholding of
her from him gave him a surging grudge against the world.
 One dreary interval between tea at the hotel and dinner he wrote to
her. He wrote in a mood in which he cared not if his writing angered her
or not; her silence, if she did not reply, would be his answer. And if she
did not reply, he vowed solemnly to himself that he would never write to
her again, that he would put her out of his life and spend his energies in
forgetting her.
He wrote:—

"DEAR CLARE—I destroyed your letter, and I can't quite

remember whether it forbade me to reply or not. Anyhow, that's
only my excuse for it. I'm having a dreadfully dull time at Seacliffe
—we're the only visitors at the hotel and, so far as I can see, the
only visitors in Seacliffe at all. I'm not exactly enjoying it, but I
daresay it's doing me good. Thanks ever so much for your advice—
I mean to profit by it—most of it, at any rate. But mayn't I write to
you—even if you don't write to me? I do want to, especially now.
May I!—Yours, KENNETH SPEED."

No answer to that. For nearly a week he scanned the rack in the

entrance-hall, hoping to see his own name typewritten on an envelope,
for he guessed that even if she did reply she would take that precaution.
But in vain his hurried and anxious returns from the cliff-walks; no letter
was there. And at last, tortured to despair, he wrote again.

"DEAR CLARE—You haven't answered my letter. I did think

you would, and now I'm a prey to all sorts of awful and, no doubt,
quite ridiculous fears. And I'm going to ask you again, half-
believing that you didn't receive my last letter—may I write to you?
May I write to you whenever I want? I can't have your company, I
know—surely you haven't the heart to deny me the friendship I can
get by writing to you? You needn't answer: I promise I will never
ask for an answer. I don't care if the letters I write offend you or not;
there is only one case in which I should like you to be good enough
to reply to me and tell me not to write again. And that is if you were
beginning to forget me—if letters from me were beginning to be a
bore to you. Please, therefore, let me write.—Yours, KENNETH
SPEED."

To that there came a reply by return of post:

 "MY DEAR KENNETH SPEED,—I think correspondence
between us is both unwise and unnecessary, but I don't see how I
can prevent you from writing if you wish to. And you need not fear
that I shall forget you.—CLARE."

He replied, immediately, and with his soul tingling with the renewal
of happiness:

"DEAR CLARE,—Thank God you can't stop me from writing,

and thank God you know you can't. I don't feel unhappy now that I
can write to you, now that I know you will read what I write. I feel
so unreticent where you are concerned—I want you to understand,
and I don't really care, when you have understood, whether you
condemn or not. This is going (perhaps) to be a longish letter; I'm
alone in the lounge of this entirely God-forsaken hotel—Helen is
putting on a frock for dinner, and I've got a quarter-of-an-hour for
you.
"This is what I've found out since I've come to Seacliffe. I've
found out the true position of you and me. You've sunk far deeper
into my soul than I have ever guessed, and I don't honestly know
how on earth I'm to get rid of you! For the last ten days I've been
fighting hard to drive you away, but I'm afraid I've been defeated.
You're there still, securely entrenched as ever, and you simply won't
budge. The only times I don't think of you are the times when I'm
too utterly tired out to think of anything or anybody. Worse still, the
stronger I get the more I want you. Why can't I stop it? You yourself
said during our memorable interview after the 'rag' that it wasn't a
bit of good trying to stop loving somebody. So you know, as well as
me—am I to conclude that, you Hound of Heaven?
"But you can't get rid of me, I hope, any more than I can of you.
You may go to the uttermost ends of the earth, but it won't matter. I
shall still have you, I shall always bore you—in fact, I've got you
now, haven't I? Don't we belong to each other in spite of ourselves?
"I tell you, I've tried to drive you out of my mind. And I really
think I might succeed better if I didn't try. Therefore, I shan't try any
more. How can you deliberately try to forget anybody? The mere
deliberation of the effort rivets them more and more eternally on
your memory!
 "Helen and I are getting on moderately well. We don't quarrel.
We exchange remarks about the weather, and we discuss trashy
novels which we both have read, and we take long and uninteresting
walks along the cliffs and admire the same views, over and over
again. Helen thinks the rest must be doing me a lot of good. Oh my
dear, dear Clare, am I wicked because I sit down here and write to
you these pleading, treacherous letters, while my wife dresses
herself upstairs without a thought that I am so engaged? Am I really
full of sin? I know if I put my case before ninety-nine out of a
hundred men and women what answer I should receive. But are you
the hundredth? I don't care if you are or not; if this is wickedness, I
clasp it as dearly as if it were not. I just can't help it. I lie awake at
nights trying to think nice, husbandly things about Helen, and just
when I think I've got really interested in her I find it's you I've really
been thinking about and not Helen at all.
"There must be some wonderful and curious bond between us,
some sort of invisible elastic. It wouldn't ever break, no matter how
far apart we went, but when it's stretched it hurts, hurts us both, I
hope, equally. Is it really courage to go on hurting ourselves like
this? What is the good of it? Supposing—I only say supposing—
supposing we let go, let the elastic slacken, followed our heart's
desire, what then? Who would suffer? Helen, I suppose. Poor
Helen!—I mustn't let her suffer like that, must I?
"It wasn't real love that I ever had for her; it was just mere
physical infatuation. And now that's gone, all that's left is just
dreadful pity—oh, pity that will not let me go! And yet what good is
pity—the sort of pity that I have for her?
"Ever since I first knew you, you have been creeping into my
heart ever so slowly and steadily, and I, because I never guessed
what was happening, have yielded myself to you utterly. In fact, I
am a man possessed by a devil—a good little devil—yet—"

He looked round and saw Helen standing by the side of him. He had
not heard her approach. She might have been there some while, he
reflected. Had she been looking over his shoulder? Did she know to
whom was the letter he was writing?
He started, and instinctively covered as much of the writing as he
could with the sleeve of his jacket.
 "I didn't know you still wrote to Clare," she said, quietly.
"Who said I did?" he parried, with instant truculence.
"You're writing to her now."
"How do you know?"
"Never mind how I know. Answer me: you are, aren't you?"
"I refuse to answer such a question. Surely I haven't to tell you of
every letter I write. If you've been spying over my shoulder it's your own
fault. How would you like me to read all the letters you write?"
"I wouldn't mind in the least, Kenneth, if I thought you didn't trust
me."
"Well, I do trust you, you see, and even if I didn't I shouldn't attempt
such an unheard—of liberty. And if you can't trust me without censoring
my correspondence, I'm afraid you'll have to go on mistrusting me."
"I don't want to censor your correspondence. I only want you to
answer me a straight question: is that a letter to Clare that you're
writing?"
"It's a most improper question, and I refuse to answer it."
"Very well.... I think it's time for dinner; hadn't you better finish the
letter afterwards? Unless of course, it's very important."
During dinner she said: "I don't feel like staying in from now until
bedtime. You'll want to finish your letter, of course, so I think, if you
don't mind, I'll go to the local kinema."
"You can't go alone, can you?"
"There's nobody can very easily stop me, is there? You don't want to
come with me, I suppose?"
"I'm afraid I don't care for kinemas much? Isn't there a theatre
somewhere?"
"No. Only a kinema. I looked in the Seacliffe Gazette. In the summer
there are Pierrots on the sands, of course."
"So you want to go alone to the kinema?"
"Yes."
"All right. But I'll meet you when it's over. Half-past ten, I suppose?"
 "Probably about then. You don't mind me leaving you for a few hours,
do you?"
"Oh, not at all. I hope you have a good time. I'm sure I can quite
understand you being bored with Seacliffe. It's the deadest hole I've ever
struck."
"But it's doing you good, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, I daresay it is in that way."
She added, after a pause: "When you get back to the lounge you'll
wonder where you put your half-written letter."
"What do you mean?" He suddenly felt in his inside coat-pocket.
"Why—where is it? I thought I put it in my pocket. Who's got it? Have
you?"
"Yes. You thought you put it in your pocket, I know. But you didn't.
You left it on the writing table and I picked it up when you weren't
looking."
"Then you have got it?"
"Yes, I have got it."
He went red with rage. "Helen, I don't want to make a scene in front
of the servants, but I insist on you giving up to me that letter. You've
absolutely no right to it, and I demand that you give it me immediately."
"You shall have it after I've read it."
"Good God, Helen, don't play the fool with me! I want it now, this
minute! Understand, I mean it! I want it now!"
"And I shan't give it to you."
He suddenly looked round the room. There was nobody there; the
waitress was away; the two of them were quite alone. He rose out of his
chair and with a second cautious glance round him went over to her and
seized her by the neck with one hand while with the other he felt in her
corsage for the letter. He knew that was where she would have put it. The
very surprise of his movement made it successful. In another moment he
had the letter in his hand. He stood above her, grim and angry, flaunting
the letter high above her head. She made an upward spring for his hand,
and he, startled by her quick retaliation, crumpled the letter into a heap
and flung it into the fire at the side of the room. Then they both stared at
each other in silence.
"So it's come to that," she said, her face very white. She placed her
hand to her breast and said: "By the way, you've hurt me."
He replied: "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I didn't intend to. I simply wanted
to get the letter, that's all."
"All right," she answered. "I'll excuse you for hurting me."
Then the waitress entered with the sweet and their conversation was
abruptly interrupted.
After dinner he went back into the lounge and took up an illustrated
paper. Somehow, he did not feel inclined to try to rewrite the letter to
Clare. And in any case, he could not have remembered more than bits of
it; it would have to be a fresh letter if he wrote at all.
Helen came downstairs to him with hat and coat on ready for
outdoors.
"Good-bye," she said, "I'm going."
He said: "Hadn't I better take you down to the place? I don't mind a
bit of a walk, you know."
She answered: "Oh, no, don't bother. It's not far. You get on with your
letter-writing."
Then she paused almost at the door of the lounge, and said, coming
back to him suddenly: "Kiss me before I go, Kenneth."
He kissed her. Then she smiled and went out.
An hour later he started another letter to Clare.

"MY DEAR, dear CLARE,—I'm so pleased it has not all come

to an end! ... All those hours we spent together, all the work we
have shared, all our joy and laughter and sympathy together—it
could not have counted for nothing, could it? We dare not have put
an end to it; we should fear being haunted all our lives. We ..."

Then the tired feeling came on him, and he no longer wanted to write,
not even to Clare. He put the hardly-begun letter in his pocket—
carefully, this time—and took up the illustrated paper again. He half
wished he had gone with Helen to the kinema.... A quarter to ten.... It
would soon be time for him to stroll out and meet her.

IV

Walking along the promenade to the beach kinema he solemnly

reviewed his life. He saw kaleidoscopically his childhood days at
Beachings Over, then the interludes at Harrow and Cambridge, and then
the sudden tremendous plunge—Millstead! It seemed to him that ever
since that glowering April afternoon when he had first stepped into
Ervine's dark study, events had been shaping themselves relentlessly to
his ruin. He could see himself as a mere automaton, moved upon by the
calm accurate fingers of fate. His meeting with Helen, his love of her and
hers for him, their marriage, their slow infinitely wearisome
estrangement—all seemed as if it had been planned with sinister
deliberation. Only one section of his life had been dominated by his own
free will, and that was the part of it that had to do with Clare. He
pondered over the subtle differentiation, and decided at last that it was
invalid, and that fate had operated at least as much with Clare as with
Helen. And yet, for all that, the distinction remained in his mind. His life
with Helen seemed to press him down, to cramp him in a narrow groove,
to deprive him of all self-determination; it was only when he came to
Clare that he was free again and could do as he liked. Surely it was he
himself, and not fate, that drew him joyously to Clare.
The mist that had hovered over Seacliffe all day was now magically
lifted, and out of a clear sky there shone a moon with the slightest of
yellow haloes encircling it. The promenade was nearly deserted, and in
all the tall cliff of boarding-houses along the Marine Parade there was
hardly a window with a light in it. The solitary redness of the lamp on
the end of the pier sent a soft shimmer over the intervening water; the
sea, at almost high tide, was quite calm. Hardly a murmur of the waves
reached his ears as he strolled briskly along, but that was because they
were right up against the stone wall of the promenade and had no beach
of pebbles to be noisy with. He leaned over the railings and saw the
water immediately beneath him, silvered in moonlight. Seacliffe was
beautiful now.... Then he looked ahead and saw the garish illuminations
of the solitary picture-palace that Seacliffe possessed, and he wondered
how Helen or anybody could prefer a kinema entertainment to the glory
of the night outside. And yet, he reflected, the glory of the night was a
subjective business; it required a certain mood; whereas the kinema
created its own mood, asking and requiring nothing. Poor Helen!
Why should pity for her have overwhelmed him suddenly at that
moment? He did not love her, not the least fraction; yet he would have
died for her if such had need to be. If she were in danger he would not
stay to think; he would risk life or limb for her sake without a
premonitory thought. He almost longed for the opportunity to sacrifice
himself for her in some such way. He felt he owed it to her. But there
was one sacrifice that was too hard—he could not live with her in
contentment, giving up Clare. He knew he couldn't. He saw quite clearly
in the future the day when he would leave Helen and go to Clare. Not
fate this time, but the hungering desire of his heart, that would not let
him rest.
And yet, was not this same desire fate itself, his own fate, leading him
on and further to some inevitable end? Only that he did not fear it. He
opened wide his arms, welcoming it, longing for and therefore
unconscious of its domination.
He stood in front of the gilded dinginess of the picture-place,
pondering on his destiny, when there came up to him a shabby little man
in a long tattered overcoat, who asked him for a light. Speed, who was so
anxious not to be a snob that he usually gave to strangers the impression
of being one, proffered a box of matches and smiled. But for the life of
him he could not think of anything to say. He felt he ought to say
something, lest the other fellow might think him surly; he racked his
brain for some appropriate remark and eventually said: "Nice night." The
other lit the stump of a cigarette contemplatively and replied: "Yes. Nice
night.... Thanks.... Waiting for somebody?"
"Yes," replied Speed, rather curtly. He had no desire to continue the
conversation, still less to discuss his own affairs.
"Rotten hole, Seacliffe, in winter," resumed the stranger, showing no
sign of moving on.
"Yes," agreed Speed.
"Nothing to do—nowhere to go—absolutely the deadest place on
God's earth. I live here and I know. Every night I take a stroll about this
time and to-night's bin the first night this year I've ever seen anything
happen at all."
"Indeed?"
The stranger ignored the obvious boredness of Speed's voice, and
continued: "Yes. That's the truth. But it happened all right to-night. Quite
exciting, in fact."
He looked at Speed to see if his interest was in any way aroused. Such
being not yet so he remarked again: "Yes, quite exciting." He paused and
added:
"Bit gruesome perhaps—to some folks."
Speed said, forcing himself to be interested:
"Why, what was it?"
And the other, triumphant that he had secured an attentive audience at
last, replied: "Body found. Pulled up off the breakwater.... Drowned, of
course."
Even now Speed was only casually interested.
"Really? And who was it?"
"Don't know the name.... A woman's body."
"Nobody identified her yet?"
"Not yet. They say she's not a Seacliffe woman.... See there!" He
pointed back along the promenade towards a spot where, not half an hour
ago, Speed had leaned over the railings to see the moonlight on the sea.
"Can you see the crowd standing about? That's where they dragged her
in. Only about ten minutes ago as I was passin'. Very high tide, you
know, washes all sorts of things up.... I didn't stay long—bit too
gruesome for me."
"Yes," agreed Speed. "And for me too.... By the way d'you happen to
know when this picture house shuts up?"
"About half-past ten, mostly."
"Thanks."
"Well—I'll be gettin' along.... Much obliged for the light.... Good-
night...."
 "Good-night," said Speed.
A few minutes later the crowd began to tumble out of the kinema. He
stood in the darkness against a blank wall, where he could see without
being seen. He wondered whether he had not better take Helen home
through the town instead of along the promenade. It was a longer way, of
course, but it would avoid the unpleasant affair that the stranger had
mentioned to him. He neither wished to see himself nor wished Helen to
see anything of the sort.
Curious that she was so late? The kinema must be almost empty now;
the stream of people had stopped. He saw the manager going to the box-
office to lock up. "Have they all come out?" he asked, emerging into the
rays of the electric lights. "Yes, everybody," answered the other. He even
glanced at Speed suspiciously, as if he wondered why he should be
waiting for somebody who obviously hadn't been to the kinema at all.
Well.... Speed stood in a sheltered alcove and lit a cigarette. He had
better get back to the Beach Hotel, anyway. Perhaps Helen hadn't gone to
the picture-show after all. Or, perhaps, she had come out before the end
and they had missed each other. Perhaps anything.... Anything! ...
Then suddenly the awful thought occurred to him. At first it was
fantastic; he walked along, sampling it in a horrified fashion, yet refusing
to be in the least perturbed by it. Then it gained ground upon him, made
him hasten his steps, throw away his cigarette, and finally run madly
along the echoing promenade to the curious little silent crowd that had
gathered there, about half-way to the pier entrance. He scampered along
the smooth asphalt just like a boisterous youngster, yet in his eyes was
wild brain-maddening fear.

Ten minutes later he knew. They pointed to a gap in the railings close
by, made some while before by a lorry that had run out of control along
the Marine Parade. The Urban District Council ought to have repaired
the railings immediately after the accident, and he (somebody in the
crowd) would not be surprised if the coroner censured the Council pretty
severely at the inquest. The gap was a positive death-trap for anybody
walking along at night and not looking carefully ahead. And he
(somebody else in the crowd) suggested the possibility of making the
Seacliffe Urban District Council pay heavy damages.... Of course, it was
an accident.... There was a bad bruise on the head: that was where she
must have struck the stones as she fell.... And in one of the pockets was a
torn kinema ticket; clearly she had been on her way home from the
Beach kinema.... Once again, it was the Council's fault for not promptly
repairing the dangerous gap in the railings.
They led him back to the Beach Hotel and gave him brandy. He kept
saying: "Now please go—I'm quite all right.... There's really nothing that
anybody can do for me.... Please go now...."
When at last he was alone in the cheerless hotel bedroom he sat down
on the side of the bed and cried. Not for sorrow or pity or terror, but
merely to relieve some fearful strain of emotion that was in him. Helen
dead! He could hardly force himself to believe it, but when he did he felt
sorry, achingly sorry, because there had been so many bonds between
them, so many bonds that only death could have snapped. He saw her
now, poor little woman, as he had never seen her before; the love in her
still living, and all that had made them unhappy together vanished away.
He loved her, those minutes in the empty, cheerless bedroom, more
calmly than he had ever loved her when she had been near to him. And
—strange miracle!—she had given him peace at last. Pity for her no
longer overwhelmed him with its sickly torture; he was calm, calm with
sorrow, but calm.

VI

Then, slowly, grimly, as to some fixed and inevitable thing, his torture
returned. He tried to persuade himself that the worst was over, that
tragedy had spent its terrible utmost; but even the sad calm of
desperation was nowhere to be found. He paced up and down the
bedroom long and wearisomely; shortly after midnight the solitary gas-
jet faltered and flickered and finally abandoned itself with a forlorn pop.
"Curse the place!" he muttered, acutely nervous in the sudden gloom;