stoically, "fact
is, I've given up trying. Why does my father die without sixpence after
serving God all his life, and another man, who has served the devil, go
under worth thousands? That's what puzzles me. And they tell us it will
all come right some day, just as we're all going to drive motor-cars
when the Socialists get in. Wouldn't I be selling mine cheap to-night if
anyone came along and offered me five pounds for it--wouldn't I say
'take it' and jolly glad to get the money. Why, Lois, dear, think what
we would do with five pounds."

"Go to Southend for Easter, Alb."

"Buy you a pretty ring and take you to the Crystal Palace."

"Drive a pony to Epping, Alb, and come back in the moonlight."

"Down to Brighton for the Saturday and two in the water together."

"Flash it on 'em in Thrawl Street and make Chris Denham cry."

They laughed together and cuddled joyously at a dream so bewildering.
Their united wealth that night was three shillings, of which Alb had two
and four pence. What untold possibilities in five pounds, what sunshine
and laughter and joy. Ah, that the dark court should be waiting for
them, the squalor, the misery, the woe of it. Who can wonder that the
shadows so soon engulfed them?

"Kiss me, Alb," she said at the corner, "shall I see you to-morrow
night, dear?"

"Outside the Pav at nine. You can tell me how your father took it. Say I
hope he'll get his rights. I think he always liked me rather, Lois."

"A sight more than ever he liked me, Alb, and that's truth. Ah, my dear,
you'll take me away from here some day, won't you, Alb? You'll take me
away where none shall ever know, where I shall see the world and forget
what I have been. Kiss me, Alb--I'm that low to-night, dear, I could cry
my heart out."

He obeyed her instantly. A voice of human suffering never failed to make
an instant appeal to him.

"As true as God's in heaven, if ever I get rich, I'll come first to Lois
with the story," he said--and so he bent and kissed her on the lips as
gently as though she had been his little sister.

CHAPTER III

WITHOUT THE GATE

Alban's garret lay within a stone's throw of the tenement occupied by
the Boriskoffs; but, in truth, it knew very little of him. They called
him "The Hunter," in the courts and alleys round about; and this was as
much as to say that his habits were predatory. He loved to roam afar in
quest, not of material booty, but of mental sensation. An imagination
that