Mr. Sumption felt he could not stay indoors—he could not bear the thought of sitting long hours, harassed and lonely, in that shabby, wind-thridden study of his, with [302] the peeled wall-paper flapping in the draught and the rain cracking on the windows. Besides, he would have to face a personal encounter with Mrs. Hubble, and weather the storm of her wrath at being “preached at”; more than once she had thought fit to give him a piece of her mind when the sermon had affronted her. The tongue of a scolding woman was an anti-climax he dared not face, so he let himself out of the little door at the back of the chapel, and, turning up his collar, marched away against the rain.

He had no exact idea where he was going. All he knew was that he wanted to get away from Sunday Street, from the people who had come to stare at him in his trouble. A lump of rage rose in his throat and choked him, and tears of rage burned at the back of his eyes. He saw the rows of stolid faces, the greased heads, the stupid bonnets. There they had sat and wagged in judgment on him and his boy. There they had sat, the people who were content to be suffered and died for by the boys in Flanders, while they stayed at home and grumbled. Well, thank the Lord he had told them what they were! Ho! he had given it to them straight—he had made their ears burn!

He walked on and on, cracking his joints with fury. He had turned into the East Road at Pont’s Green, and was now hurrying southward, head down, to meet the gale. There was something in the flogging and whirling of the wind which stimulated him; he found relief in pushing against the storm, in swallowing the rain that beat upon his lips and trickled down his face. He would walk till he was tired, and then he would find some sheltered place to go to sleep. Only through exhaustion could he hope to find sleep to-night. It would be horrible to lie and toss in stuffy sheets, while the da............