cold, and it carried with it a smell of the sea and of the turf, wet with yesterday's rain.
"Tell me, then. What do you mean to do now?"
"Finish the book, first of all. Beyond that I've no plans at all. The worst of it is, I've rather lost faith in it lately. I suppose one is apt to feel like that, after working on a thing for twelve years. Now that it's nearly done, I want to chuck the whole blessed thing into the fire. It would give me a queer sort of satisfaction to see it burn. Remorse and despair would follow, of course."
"Kindly resist any such impulse," she said.
"Oh, I shan't give in to it, I promise you."
"It's all wrong for you to live alone as you do," Judy told him. "Only people who are very socially inclined ought to live alone, for they'd take good care not to be alone any more than they could help. I think loneliness is paralyzing."
"I believe it is," he agreed.
"Very well then. You must stop living this hermit's life."
"That," he said smiling, "isn't as easy as it sounds."
"It's fairly easy, I think. You must marry."
Chip had no reply to make to that for some
