Once
safe, he ran towards Starhaven as fast as he could, and felt as if he
were flying for his life. But when he got to the end of the playground
he could not help stopping to take one more longing, lingering look at
the scenes he was leaving for ever. It was a chilly and overclouded
night, and by the gleams of struggling moonlight, he saw the whole
buildings standing out black in the night air. The past lay behind him
like a painting. Many and many unhappy or guilty hours had he spent in
that home, and yet those last four years had not gone by without their
own wealth of life and joy. He remembered how he had first walked across
that playground, hand in hand with his father, a little boy of twelve.
He remembered his first troubles with Barker, and how his father had at
last delivered him from the annoyances of his old enemy. He remembered
how often he and Russell had sat there, looking at the sea, in pleasant
talk, especially the evening when he had got his first prize and head
remove in the lower fourth; and how, in the night of Russell's death, he
had gazed over that playground from the sick-room window.
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