right bar of light that streams in from the landing.

His daughter--not as he had last seen her, but with a difference
unaccountable if he had had time to think or strength to reason. His
daughter, with the past years rolled back to show her in her youth, and
yet with poor and scanty dress, and long fair hair tossed in confusion
on her shoulders, whence a battered bonnet hung.

He had no time to note all this at first. He only knew that his heart
seemed to be going out in some dumb movement towards this
apparition--that he sank again into his chair--that he felt a living
hand upon his shoulder--saw a frightened face looking into his. Then his
senses came back, and he heard the voice speak rapidly, and in French.

* * * * *

With swift steps, but without picking his way, taking the nearest road
rather by habit than with any observation, Antoine Dormeur traversed the
narrow streets leading to his destination. There were so few people
abroad that the way was clear enough, and yet there were some
apprentices or worklads on their way home; while in that neighbourhood,
just on the edge of Spitalfields, a lower colony of petty thieves and
receivers kept up the trade of two or three disreputable taverns, where
dogs, birds, and pigeons were exchanged or betted on. It may have been
in consequence of this taste for pigeon-flying that the whole
neighbourhood resounded with whistles and bird-calls. Men and boys gave
each other this shrill greeting as they passed, or warned each other by
it, or used it to express reproach or pleasure, hilarity or dismay,
varying its peculiar note to suit each emotion. The Hare Street whistle
was as well-known an institution there as the joedel is to the Tyrolese
peasant.

It scarcely surprised Antoine, therefore, when, as he reached a
beer-shop (the last lighted house before the straggling street opened
into a dirty lane leading to the open fields), a man who was just
emerging from the place gave a low whistle as he turned in the opposite
direction and crossed the road. Had he given the matter a thought, he
might have hesitated for a moment before plunging into the gloom of the
muddy lane, or at least might have grasped his walking-cane more firmly
and looked about him, in which case it is just possible he would have
seen two shadows that moved in the darkness of the wall some fifty yards
behind. As it was, he did neither. The course of his gloomy thoughts was
unbr