o you
to be the champion of your class. Let me alone. Speak your errand
and be gone! No one can tell when the end may come. It will be
better for you, when it does, that you are not here."

"I have come on account of your niece, whom you left penniless and
homeless," Arnold said sternly. "With your immense sympathy for
others, perhaps you can explain this little act of inattention on
your part?"

Isaac's start of surprise was genuine enough.

"I had forgotten her," he admitted curtly. "I saw the red fires that
night and since then there has been no moment to breathe or
think--nothing to do but get ready for the end. I had forgotten
her."

"She is safe, for the present," Arnold told him. "My circumstances
have improved and I have taken a small flat in which there is a room
for her. This may do for the present, but Ruth, after all, is a
young woman. She is morbidly sensitive. However willing I may be,
and I am willing, it is not right that she should remain with me. I
have always taken it for granted that save for you she has no
relatives and no friends. Is this the truth? Is there no one whom
she has the right to ask for a home?"

Isaac was silent. Some movements in the street below disturbed him,
and he walked with catlike tread to the window, peering through a
hole in the blind for several moments. When he was satisfied that
nothing unusual was transpiring, he came back.

"Listen," he said hoarsely, "I am a dead man already in all but
facts. I can tell you nothing of Ruth's relatives. Better that she
starved upon the streets than found them. But there is her chance
still. My mind has been filled with big things and I had forgotten
it. Before we moved into Adam Street, the last doctor who saw Ruth
suggested an operation. He felt sure that it would be successful. It
was to cost forty guineas. I have saved very nearly the whole of
that money. It stands in her name at the Westminster Savings Bank.
If she goes there and proves her identity, she can get it. I saved
that money--God knows how!"

"What is the name of the doctor?" Arnold asked.

"His name was Heskell and he was at the London Hospital," Isaac
replied. "Now I have done with you. That is Ruth's chance--there is
nothing else I can do. Be off as quickly as you can. If you give
information as to my whereabouts, you will probably pay for it with
your life, for there are others besides myself who are hiding in
this house. Now go. Do you hear?"

Arnold's an