The second afternoon of Lawrence Croft's confinement in the little building in Mrs Keswick's yard, passed drearily enough.

The sky retained its sombre covering of clouds, and the rain came down in a melancholy, capricious way, as if it were tears shed by a child who was crying because it was bad.

The monotony of the slowly moving hours was broken only by a very brief visit from the old lady, who was going somewhere in the covered spring wagon, and who looked in, before she started, to see if her patient wanted anything; and by the arrival of a bundle of old novels sent by Mrs Null.

These books Lawrence looked over with indifferent interest, hoping to find one among them that was not a love story, but he was disappointed.

They were all based upon, and most of them permeated with, the tender passion, and Lawrence was not in the mood for reading about that sort of thing.