rected to the left. He
submitted.

The fruiterer at the corner had put out the blazing glory of his oranges
and lemons, and Brett Place was all darkness, interspersed with the misty
halos of the few lamps defining its triangular shape, with a cluster of
three lights on one stand in the middle. The dark forms of the man and
woman glided slowly arm in arm along the walls with a loverlike and
homeless aspect in the miserable night.

"What would you say if I were to tell you that I was going to find you?"
Mrs Verloc asked, gripping his arm with force.

"I would say that you couldn't find anyone more ready to help you in your
trouble," answered Ossipon, with a notion of making tremendous headway.
In fact, the progress of this delicate affair was almost taking his
breath away.

"In my trouble!" Mrs Verloc repeated slowly.

"Yes."

"And do you know what my trouble is?" she whispered with strange
intensity.

"Ten minutes after seeing the evening paper," explained Ossipon with
ardour, "I met a fellow whom you may have seen once or twice at the shop
perhaps, and I had a talk with him which left no doubt whatever in my
mind. Then I started for here, wondering whether you--I've been fond of
you beyond words ever since I set eyes on your face," he cried, as if
unable to command his feelings.

Comrade Ossipon assumed correctly that no woman was capable of wholly
disbelieving such a statement. But he did not know that Mrs Verloc
accepted it with all the fierceness the instinct of self-preservation
puts into the grip of a drowning person. To the widow of Mr Verloc the
robust anarchist was like a radiant messenger of life.

They walked slowly, in step. "I thought so," Mrs Verloc murmured
faintly.

"You've read it in my eyes," suggested Ossipon with great assurance.

"Yes," she breathed out into his inclined ear.

"A love like mine could not be concealed from a woman like you," he went
on, trying to detach his mind from material considerations such as the
business value of the shop, and the amount of money Mr Verloc might have
left in the bank. He applied himself to the sentimental side of the
affair. In his heart of hearts he was a little shocked at his success.
Verloc had been a good fellow, and certainly a very decent husband as far
as one could see. However, Comrade Ossipon was not going to quarrel with
his luck for the sake of a dead man. Resolutely he suppressed his
sympathy for the ghost of Comrade Verloc