ed resolve to go home and
stay there quietly till Keith came. He was in Keith's hands, Keith would
know what was to be done. But he had not gone three hundred yards before
he felt so utterly weary, body and soul, that if he had but had a pistol
in his pocket he would have shot himself in the street. Not even the
thought of the girl--this young unfortunate with her strange devotion,
who had kept him straight these last five months, who had roused in him
a depth of feeling he had never known before--would have availed against
that sudden black defection. Why go on--a waif at the mercy of his own
nature, a straw blown here and there by every gust which rose in him?
Why not have done with it for ever, and take it out in sleep?

He was approaching the fatal street, where he and the girl, that early
morning, had spent the hours clutched together, trying in the refuge of
love to forget for a moment their horror and fear. Should he go in?
He had promised Keith not to. Why had he promised? He caught sight of
himself in a chemist's lighted window. Miserable, shadowy brute! And he
remembered suddenly a dog he had picked up once in the streets of Pera,
a black-and-white creature--different from the other dogs, not one of
their breed, a pariah of pariahs, who had strayed there somehow. He had
taken it home to the house where he was staying, contrary to all custom
of the country; had got fond of it; had shot it himself, sooner than
leave it behind again to the mercies of its own kind in the streets.
Twelve years ago! And those sleevelinks made of little Turkish coins
he had brought back for the girl at the hairdresser's in Chancery Lane
where he used to get shaved--pretty creature, like a wild rose. He had
asked of her a kiss for payment. What queer emotion when she put her
face forward to his lips--a sort of passionate tenderness and shame,
at the softness and warmth of that flushed cheek, at her beauty and
trustful gratitude. She would soon have given herself to him--that one!
He had never gone there again! And to this day he did not know why he
had abstained; to this day he did not know whether he were glad or sorry
not to have plucked that rose. He must surely have been very different
then! Queer business, life--queer, queer business!--to go through it
never knowing what you would do next. Ah! to be like Keith, steady,
buttoned-up in success; a brass pot, a pillar of society! Once, as a
boy, he had been within an ace of killing Ke