Willie Ruston slept, on the night following his return to London, in the Carlins' house at Hampstead. The all-important question of the railway made a consultation necessary, and Ruston's indisposition to face his solitary rooms caused him to accept gladly the proffered hospitality. The little cramped place was always a refuge and a rest; there he could best rejoice over a victory or forget a temporary defeat. There he fled now, in the turmoil of his mind. The question of the railway had hurried him from Dieppe, but it could not carry away from him the memories of Dieppe. Yet that was the office he had already begun to ask of it-of it and of the quiet busy life at Hampstead, where he lingered till a week stretched to two and to three, spending his days at work in the City, and his evenings
