said; "everybody's listening here. Be there at nine sharp. Who knows, it
may be the last time we shall ever meet in London--"

"You're not going away, Alb?"

A look of terror had come into the pretty eyes; the frail figure of the
girl trembled as she asked the question.

"Can't say, Lois--how do I know? Suppose I went as a sailor--"

Lois laughed louder than before.

"You--a blueboy! Lord, how you make me laugh. Fancy the aristocrat being
ordered about. Oh, my poor funny-bone! Wouldn't you knock the man down
that did it--oh, can't I see him."

The idea amused her immensely and she dwelt upon it even in the street
outside. Her Alb as Captain Jack--or should it be the cabin-boy. And, of
course, he would bring her a parrot from the Brazils and perhaps a
monkey.

"An' I'll keep a light in the winder for fear you should be shipwrecked
in High Street, Alb, and won't we go hornpiping together. Oh, you silly
boy; oh, you dear old Captain Jack--whatever put a sailorman into your
mind?"

"The water," said Alban, as stolidly--"it leads to somewhere, Lois. This
is the road to nowhere--good God, how tired I am of it."

"And of those who go with you, Alb."

"I am ashamed of myself because of them, Lois."

"You silly boy, Alb--are they ashamed, Alb? Oh, no, no--people who love
are never ashamed."

He did not contest the point with her, nor might she linger. Bells were
ringing everywhere, syrens were calling the people to work. It was a new
thing for Alban Kennedy to be strolling the streets with his hands in
his pockets when the clock struck one. And yet there he was become a
loafer in an instant, just one of the many thousand who stare up idly at
the sky or gaze upon the windows of the shops they may not patronize, or
drift on helpless as though a dark stream of life had caught them and
nevermore would set them on dry land again. Alban realized all this, and
yet the full measure of his disaster was not wholly understood. It was
so recent, the consequences yet unfelt, the future, after all, pregnant
with the possibilities of change. He knew not at all what he should do,
and yet determined that the shame of which he had spoken should never
overtake him.

And so determining, he strolled as far as Aldgate Station--and there he
met the stranger.

CHAPTER VI

THE STRANGER

There is a great deal of fine philanthropic work done east of Aldgate
Station by numbers of self-sacrificing young men just down from the
U