heal. He knew that he had wounded the
white soul of her so that it was sick with uncertainty, faint with
dread; and, putting on his hat, stepped sharply back and let the mist
take him and hide him from her sight.

But, though she did not see, he was near her even then.

He knew when she walked out into the light-filled street; he knew when
she found a taxicab; and he did not make an effort to go his way until
he was sure that she was safely started upon hers. Then he screwed round
on his heel and went back into the mist and loneliness of the heath, and
walked, and walked, and walked. Afterward--long afterward: when the
night was getting old and the town was going to sleep, he, too, fared
forth in quest of a taxi, and finding one went _his_ way as she had gone
hers.

In the neighbourhood of Bond Street--now a place of darkness and
slow-tramping policemen--he dismissed the taxi and continued the journey
along Piccadilly afoot. It was close to one o'clock when he came at
length to Clarges Street and swung into it from the Piccadilly end, and
moved on in the direction of the house which sheltered him and his
secrets together. But, though he walked with apparent indifference, his
eye was ever on the lookout for some chance watcher in the windows of
the other houses; for "Captain Horatio Burbage" was supposed, in the
neighbourhood, to be a superannuated seaman who maintained a bachelor
establishment with the aid of an elderly housekeeper and a deaf-and-dumb
maid of all work.

But no one was on the watch to-night; and it was only when he came at
last to the pillared portico of his own residence that he found any sign
of life from one end of the street to the other. He did find it then,
however; for the boy, Dollops, was sitting huddled up on the top step
with the thick shadow of the portico making a safe screen for him.

He had made good use of the two half-crowns, for he had not only
feasted--and was feasting still: on a bag of winkles and a saveloy--but
was washed and brushed and had gone to the length of a shoe-shine and a
collar.

"Been waitin' since eleven o'clock, sir," he said, getting up and
pulling his forelock as Cleek appeared. "Didn't knock and arsk for no
one, though--not me. Twigged as it would be you, sir, on account of your
sayin' to-night. I've read summink of the ways of 'tecs. Wot ho!"

"You seem a sharp little customer, at all events," said Cleek with a
curious one-sided smile--a smile that was pec