nd with a grin.

"Keep up the fire, Polly," she threw back. "Ain't it warm and cheerful?
It'll do the cove good to see it."

She led the way down the black, unsafe stairway. She always led.

Outside the fog had thickened again, but she went through it as if she
could see her way.

At the entrance to the court the thief was standing, leaning against the
wall with fevered, unhopeful waiting in his eyes. He moved miserably
when he saw the girl, and she called out to reassure him.

"I ain't up to no 'arm," she said; "I on'y come with the gent."

Antony Dart spoke to him.

"Did you get food?"

The man shook his head.

"I turned faint after you left me, and when I came to I was afraid I
might miss you," he answered. "I daren't lose my chance. I bought some
bread and stuffed it in my pocket. I've been eating it while I've stood
here."

"Come back with us," said Dart. "We are in a place where we have some
food."

He spoke mechanically, and was aware that he did so. He was a pawn
pushed about upon the board of this day's life.

"Come on," said the girl. "Yer can get enough to last fer three days."

She guided them back through the fog until they entered the murky
doorway again. Then she almost ran up the staircase to the room they
had left.

When the door opened the thief fell back a pace as before an
unexpected thing. It was the flare of firelight which struck upon his
eyes. He passed his hand over them.

"A fire!" he said. "I haven't seen one for a week. Coming out of the
blackness it gives a man a start."

Improvident joy gleamed in Glad's eyes.

"We'll be warm onct," she chuckled, "if we ain't never warm agaen."

She drew her circle about the hearth again. The thief took the place
next to her and she handed out food to him--a big slice of meat, bread,
a thick slice of pudding.

"Fill yerself up," she said. "Then ye'll feel like yer can talk."

The man tried to eat his food with decorum, some recollection of the
habits of better days restraining him, but starved nature was too much
for him. His hands shook, his eyes filled, his teeth tore. The rest of
the circle tried not to look at him. Glad and Polly occupied themselves
with their own food.

Antony Dart gazed at the fire. Here he sat warming himself in a loft
with a beggar, a thief, and a helpless thing of the street. He had come
out to buy a pistol--its weight still hung in his overcoat pocket--and
he had reached this place of w