“Yes, we are.  It’s a peculiar fact, well known and long cursed among travelers, that all the steamers in the world arrive in England on Saturday afternoon.  We’ll get to London for Sunday.”

During the long voyage, for the first time since the day on which he met the stranger, and which already seemed of long ago, Lewis had time to think.  A sadness settled on him.  What were they doing at Nadir on this starry night?  Were the goats corraled?  Who had brought them in?  Was mammy crooning songs of low-swinging chariots and golden stairs?  Was Mrs. Leighton still patiently sewing?  The Reverend Orme, was he still sitting scowling and staring and staring?  And Natalie?  Was she there, or was she gone, married?  He drew a great, quivering sigh.

Leighton looked around.

“Trying to pick up a side-tracked car?”

Lewis smiled faintly, but understandingly.

“It’s not quite side-tracked—­yet,” he said.

“Ah, boy, never look back,” said Leighton.  “But, no; do.  Do look back.  You’re young yet.  Tell me about it.”

Then for a long time Lewis talked of Nadir:  of the life there, of the Reverend Orme, grown morose through unnamed troubles; of Mrs. Leighton, withered away till naught but patience was left; of happy mammy, grown sad; of Natalie, friend, playmate, and sacrifice.

“So they wanted to marry your little pal into motherhood twenty times over, ready-made,” said Leighton.  “And you fought them, told ’em what you thought of it.  You were right, boy; you were right.  The wilderness must have turned their heads.  But you ought to have stayed with it.  Why didn’t you stay with it?  You’re no quitter.”

“There were things I said to the Reverend Orme,” said Lewis, slowly—­“things I knew, that made it impossible for me to stay.”

“Things you knew?  What things?”

Lewis did not answer.

* * * * *

It was on a gray Sunday that they entered London.  In a four-wheeler, the roof of which groaned under a pyramid of baggage, they started out into the mighty silence of deserted streets.  The plunk! plunk! of the horse’s shod hoofs crashed against the blank walls of the shuttered houses and reverberated ahead of them until sound dribbled away down the gorge of the all-embracing nothing.  Gray, gray; heaven and earth and life were gray.

Lewis felt like crying, but Leighton came to the rescue.  He was in high spirits.

“Boy, look out of the window.  Is there anywhere in the world a youth spouting verse on a street corner?”

“No,” said Lewis.

“Or an orator shooting himself to give point to an impassioned speech?”

“No.”

“Or women shaking their bangles into the melting-pot for the cause of freedom?”

“No.”

“I should say not.  This is Sunday in London.  Take off your hat.  You are in the graveyard of all the emotions of the earth.”