hing.  "What's the use of me
giving you good advice if you don't take it.  There, good-bye, my lad.
Banks was quite right."

He nodded, faced round, and marched away, leaving Richard Frayne gazing
at the black future before him as he muttered--

"Beaten!  Why did I fight my way out of the flood?"

His next thought made him shudder: for a river was below there in the
town, and he had crossed a bridge, beneath which the deep water flowed
fast to where there was oblivion and rest.

He spoke mentally once more:

"Why not?"

As Richard Frayne gazed after the fat sergeant he failed to see the
ridiculously fat back in the tight jacket for somehow he was looking
inside at the man's heart.

"But he does not know--he does not know," muttered the lad, as he turned
now and walked back toward the town street, down which he hurried with
the intention of finding a quiet place where he could have a meal, and
turned at last into a coffee-house, where he ordered tea and
bread-and-butter, drinking the former with avidity, for he was
feverishly thirsty, but the first mouthful of food seemed as if it would
choke him, and he took no more.

Half an hour later he had another cup of tea, for his thirst seemed
greater, and after that he went and wandered about the town, finding
most rest in the shade of the great ruined Castle Keep, where the
jackdaws sailed round, and cawed at him as if they were old friends from
Primchilsea who recognised him and called out to their companions that
he was below.

"What should he do," he thought; "what should he do?"  For his plan had
been completely checked, and in the most unexpected way.

He was sick at heart and faint in body, but his spirit was not crushed.
He had laid his hand to the plough, and if a hundred good-tempered
well-meaning fat sergeants came or gave their advice he could not look
back.  No; he must sleep at Ratcham that night, and make for Quitnesbury
in the morning.  There was a cavalry depot there; and if he failed
again, he could go on to Ranstone.

"There must be regiments where the