of the city; he
was pushing his way among the tables and scrutinising by mere force of
habit every group he passed.

He stood still, robbed of all power of motion, his eyes wide, his lips
apart. Elizabeth sat scarcely twenty yards away from him, looking
straight at him. Her eyes were as hard to him, as hard and
expressionless and void of recognition, as the eyes of a statue.

She looked at him for a moment, and then her gaze passed beyond him.

Had he had only her eyes to judge by he might have doubted if it was
indeed Elizabeth, but he knew her by the gesture of her hand, by the
grace of a wanton little curl that floated over her ear as she moved her
head. Something was said to her, and she turned smiling tolerantly to
the man beside her, a little man in foolish raiment knobbed and spiked
like some odd reptile with pneumatic horns--the Bindon of her father's
choice.

For a moment Denton stood white and wild-eyed; then came a terrible
faintness, and he sat before one of the little tables. He sat down with
his back to her, and for a time he did not dare to look at her again.
When at last he did, she and Bindon and two other people were standing
up to go. The others were her father and her chaperone.

He sat as if incapable of action until the four figures were remote and
small, and then he rose up possessed with the one idea of pursuit. For
a space he feared he had lost them, and then he came upon Elizabeth and
her chaperone again in one of the streets of moving platforms that
intersected the city. Bindon and Mwres had disappeared.

He could not control himself to patience. He felt he must speak to her
forthwith, or die. He pushed forward to where they were seated, and sat
down beside them. His white face was convulsed with half-hysterical
excitement.

He laid his hand on her wrist. "Elizabeth?" he said.

She turned in unfeigned astonishment. Nothing but the fear of a strange
man showed in her face.

"Elizabeth," he cried, and his voice was strange to him: "dearest--you
_know_ me?"

Elizabeth's face showed nothing but alarm and perplexity. She drew
herself away from him. The chaperone, a little grey-headed woman with
mobile features, leant forward to intervene. Her resolute bright eyes
examined Denton. "_What_ do you say?" she asked.

"This young lady," said Denton,--"she knows me."

"Do you know him, dear?"

"No," said Elizabeth in a strange voice, and with a hand to her
forehead, speaking almost as one