He sat in a deep reverie, his paper unfolded in his hand, past scenes flowing through his brain as the train sped on towards London.

The carriage and its occupants receded from his vision, and he was back again on the Cornwall cliffs with Sisily.

Her face appeared before his eyes just as he had seen it in their last parting.
He came back with an effort to the world of events, and unfolded his newspaper.

That was a daily ordeal from which he shrank, yet dared not evade.

During the past week he had faced it in all sorts of places: street corners, public squares, obscure restaurants, the burrowed windings of Underground stations, and once in the dark interior of a cinema where he had followed a girl with a vague resemblance to Sisily.