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time there happened to be no difficulty in getting a post as
obstetric clerk; he arranged to undertake that duty during
the last week of August and the first two of September. After
this interview Philip walked through the Medical School,
more or less deserted, for the examinations at the end of
the summer session were all over; and he wandered along
the terrace by the river-side. His heart was full. He thought
that now he could begin a new life, and he would put be-
hind him all the errors, follies, and miseries of the past. The
flowing river suggested that everything passed, was passing
always, and nothing mattered; the future was before him
rich with possibilities.
He went back to Blackstable and busied himself with the
settling up of his uncle’s estate. The auction was fixed for
the middle of August, when the presence of visitors for the
summer holidays would make it possible to get better prices.
Catalogues were made out and sent to the various dealers
in second-hand books at Tercanbury, Maidstone, and Ash-
ford.
One afternoon Philip took it into his head to go over to
Tercanbury and see his old school. He had not been there
since the day when, with relief in his heart, he had left it
with the feeling that thenceforward he was his own mas-
ter. It was strange to wander through the narrow streets of
Tercanbury which he had known so well for so many years.
He looked at the old shops, still there, still selling the same
things; the booksellers with school-books, pious works, and
the latest novels in one window and photographs of the Ca-
thedral and of the city in the other; the games shop, with

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