hind a high wooden screen, across the huge
kitchen, and then through a long stone corridor at the end of which sat
a gruff old doorkeeper. My guide spoke a word to him, and then the door
opened and I found myself in a narrow back slum with the canal beyond.

My first visit was to a clothier's, where I purchased and put on a new
light overcoat and then to a hatter's for a hat of different shape to
that I was wearing. I carried the hat back to a quiet alley which I had
noticed, and quickly exchanged the one I was wearing for it, leaving my
old hat in a corner. Then I entered a _cafe_ in order to while away the
hours until the vessel from Finland was due.

At four o'clock I was out upon the quay, straining my eyes seaward for
any sign of smoke, but could see nothing. The sun was sinking, and the
broad expanse of water westward danced like liquid gold. The light died
out slowly, the cold gray of evening crept on. A chill wind sprang up
and swept the quay, causing me to shiver. I asked of a dock laborer
whether the steamer was usually late, whereupon he told me that it was
often five or six hours behind time, depending upon the delay at
Helsingfors.

Twilight deepened into night, and the rain fell heavily, yet I still
paced the wet flags in patience, my eyes ever seaward for the light of
the vessel which I hoped bore my love. My presence there aroused some
speculation among the loungers, I think; nevertheless, I waited in
deepest anxiety whether, after all, Elma and Hornby had not disembarked
at Helsingfors.

Soon after ten o'clock a light shone afar off, and the movement of the
police and porters on the quay told me that it was the vessel. Then
after a further anxious quarter of an hour it came, amid great shouting
and mutual imprecations, slowly alongside the quay, and the passengers
at last began to disembark in the pelting rain.

One after another they walked up the gangway, filing into the
passport-office and on into the Custom House, people of all sorts and
all grades--Swedes, Germans, Finns, and Russians--until suddenly I
caught sight of two figures--one a man in a big tweed traveling-coat and
a golf-cap, and the other the slight figure of a woman in a long dark
cloak and a woolen tam-o'-shanter. The electric rays fell upon them as
they came up the wet gangway together, and there once again I saw the
sweet face of the silent woman whom I had grown to love with such
fervent desperation. The man behind her was the