sounds created by the process. His card of appeal--"Wanted
in 1914; not wanted now"--helped Charles to recall him as a soldier of his
old regiment. They exchanged glances across the card. The man gave no sign
that he knew his former officer, but Charles had no doubt that he did. He
placed a coin on top of the organ and went swiftly on.

A week of increasing strain slipped by, and another commenced. Then
Fortune, with a contemptuous good-humoured spin of her wheel, did for
Charles Turold what he could hardly have hoped to achieve in a year's
effort without her aid.

It was late at night, and he was in a despondent mood after one of his
recurring disappointments--this time a graceful slender shape which he had
earlier in the evening pursued in a flock of home-going shop-girls until
she turned and revealed a pert Cockney face which bore no resemblance to
Sisily's. Several hours later he paid another of his visits to Euston
Square, which he believed to be the starting-point of Sisily's own
wanderings. He felt closer to her in that locality because of that. From
Euston Square he walked on aimlessly, engrossed in impossible plans for
finding Sisily by hook or crook, until the illuminated dial of a street
clock, pointing to half-past ten, reminded him of the passage of time.

He paused and looked round. He was in an area of darkened suburban streets
converging on a distant broader avenue, where occasional taxi-cabs slid
past into the blackness of the night with the heartless velocity of years
disappearing into the gulf of Time.

He turned his steps in the direction of this thoroughfare in order to find
out the locality, but stopped half-way at the sight of a coffee-stall on
the opposite side of the street. He was hungry and thirsty, and he had
learnt to like the safety of these places in his wanderings. The food
might be coarse, but there were no lengthy waits between courses; no
curious glances from the other patrons. A couple of half-drunken young men
were feeding at this stall, and a girl of the streets was standing near
them. In the light of a swinging lamp the scene shone clearly in the
surrounding darkness--the brass urn, the thick crockery, the head of the
stall-keeper bent intently over a newspaper, the munching jaws of the
customers, the girl in the background with splashes of crimson paint like
blood on her white drawn face.

Charles was about to cross the street, but at that moment a policeman's
helmet emerged s