at once; had divined
it, perhaps, before he spoke. But she only twined her arms round him and
kissed his lips. And he knew that she was begging him to put his love
for her above his conscience. Who would ever have thought that he
could feel as he did to this girl who had been in the arms of many! The
stained and suffering past of a loved woman awakens in some men only
chivalry; in others, more respectable, it rouses a tigerish itch, a
rancorous jealousy of what in the past was given to others. Sometimes it
will do both. When he had her in his arms he felt no remorse for killing
the coarse, handsome brute who had ruined her. He savagely rejoiced in
it. But when she laid her head in the hollow of his shoulder, turning
to him her white face with the faint colour-staining on the parted lips,
the cheeks, the eyelids; when her dark, wide-apart, brown eyes gazed
up in the happiness of her abandonment--he felt only tenderness and
protection.

He left her at five o'clock, and had not gone two streets' length before
the memory of the little grey vagabond, screwed back in the far corner
of the dock like a baited raccoon, of his dreary, creaking voice, took
possession of him again; and a kind of savagery mounted in his brain
against a world where one could be so tortured without having meant harm
to anyone.

At the door of his lodgings Keith was getting out of a cab. They went in
together, but neither of them sat down; Keith standing with his back to
the carefully shut door, Laurence with his back to the table, as if they
knew there was a tug coming. And Keith said: "There's room on that boat.
Go down and book your berth before they shut. Here's the money!"

"I'm going to stick it, Keith."

Keith stepped forward, and put a roll of notes on the table.

"Now look here, Larry. I've read the police court proceedings. There's
nothing in that. Out of prison, or in prison for a few weeks, it's
all the same to a night-bird of that sort. Dismiss it from your
mind--there's not nearly enough evidence to convict. This gives you your
chance. Take it like a man, and make a new life for yourself."

Laurence smiled; but the smile had a touch of madness and a touch of
malice. He took up the notes.

"Clear out, and save the honour of brother Keith. Put them back in your
pocket, Keith, or I'll put them in the fire. Come, take them!" And,
crossing to the fire, he held them to the bars. "Take them, or in they
go!"

Keith took back the notes.