[J.R. Sinclair]

passed like an Ipril dye,
But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred
They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!

The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of
countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-
section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed
without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a
versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful
rubbish into an almost pleasant sound. He could hear the woman singing and
the scrape of her shoes on the flagstones, and the cries of the children in
the street, and somewhere in the far distance a faint roar of traffic, and
yet the room seemed curiously silent, thanks to the absence of a
telescreen.
Folly, folly, folly! he thought again. It was inconceivable that they
could frequent this place for more than a few weeks without being caught.
But the temptation of having a hiding-place that was truly their own,
indoors and near at hand, had been too much for both of them. For some time
after their visit to the church belfry it had been impossible to arrange
meetings. Working hours had been drastically increased in anticipation of
Hate Week. It was more than a month distant, but the enormous, complex
preparations that it entailed were throwing extra work on to everybody.
Finally both of them managed to secure a free afternoon on the same day.
They had agreed to go back to the clearing in the wood.