A NIGHT ON THE ROAD In a man of green age and inexperience a hasty judgment may gain pardon and none need wonder that his hopes carry him on straightway to conclusions born of desire rather than of reason.

The meeting I feared had passed off so softly that I forgot how strange and delicate it was, and what were the barriers which a gust of sympathy had for the moment levelled.

It did not enter my mind that they must raise their heads again, and that friendship, or even companionship, must be impossible between the two whom I, desperately seeking some refuge, had thrown together.

Yet an endeavour was made, and that on both sides; obligation blunted the edge of Mistress Barbara's scorn, freedom's respect for virtue's chain schooled Nell to an unwonted staidness of demeanour.

The fires of war but smouldered, the faintest puff of smoke showing only here and there.