We take life easily down here where I am. We've no
disappointments."
"Why did you give up like a weak coward?" I burst out angrily. "You had
talent. You would have won with ordinary perseverance."
"Maybe," he replied, in the same even tone of indifference. "I suppose I
hadn't the grit. I think if somebody had believed in me it might have
helped me. But nobody did, and at last I lost belief in myself. And
when a man loses that, he's like a balloon with the gas let out."
I listened to his words in indignation and astonishment. "Nobody
believed in you!" I repeated. "Why, _I_ always believed in you, you know
that I--"
Then I paused, remembering our "candid criticism" of one another.
"Did you?" he replied quietly, "I never heard you say so. Good-night."
In the course of our Strandward walking we had come to the neighbourhood
of the Savoy, and, as he spoke, he disappeared down one of the dark
turnings thereabouts.
I hastened after him, calling him by name, but though I heard his quick
steps before me for a little way, they were soon swallowed up in the
sound of other steps, and, when I reached the square in which the chapel
stands, I had lost all trace of him.
A policeman was standing by the churchyard railings, and of him I made
inquiries.
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