d throngs which afforded a marked contrast to
those crowding theatreland; and from thence through Whitechapel and the
seemingly endless Commercial Road it was a different world into which
they had penetrated.

Rita hitherto had never seen the East End on a Saturday night, and the
spectacle afforded by these busy marts, lighted by naphtha flames, in
whose smoky glare Jews and Jewesses, Poles, Swedes, Easterns, dagoes,
and halfcastes moved feverishly, was a fascinating one. She thought how
utterly alien they were, the men and women of a world unknown to that
society upon whose borders she dwelled; she wondered how they lived,
where they lived, why they lived. The wet pavements were crowded with
nondescript humanity, the night was filled with the unmusical voices of
Hebrew hucksters, and the air laden with the smoky odor of their lamps.
Tramcars and motorbuses were packed unwholesomely with these children of
shadowland drawn together from the seven seas by the magnet of London.

She glanced at Pyne, but he was seemingly lost in abstraction, and
Kilfane appeared to be asleep. Mollie Gretna was staring eagerly out
on the opposite side of the car at a group of three dago sailors, whom
Mareno had nearly run down, but she turned at that moment and caught
Rita's glance.

"Don't you simply love it!" she cried. "Some of those men were really
handsome, dear. If they would only wash I am sure I could adore them!"

"Even such charms as yours can be bought at too high a price," drawled
Sir Lucien. "They would gladly do murder for you, but never wash."

Crossing Limehouse Canal, the car swung to the right into West India
Dock Road. The uproar of the commercial thoroughfare was left far
behind. Dark, narrow streets and sinister-looking alleys lay right and
left of them, and into one of the narrowest and least inviting of all
Mareno turned the car.

In the dimly-lighted doorway of a corner house the figure of a Chinaman
showed as a motionless silhouette.

"Oh!" sighed Mollie Gretna rapturously, "a Chinaman! I begin to feel
deliciously sinful!"

The car came to a standstill.

"We get out here and walk," said Sir Lucien. "It would not be wise to
drive further. Mareno will deliver our baggage by hand presently."

"But we shall all be murdered," cried Mollie, "murdered in cold blood! I
am dreadfully frightened!"

"Something of the kind is quite likely," drawled Sir Lucien, "if you
draw attention to our presence in the neighborho