emoved his hat, which sailed buoyantly back
towards the street. He was after it like a youth of twenty, and he
recaptured it. But when he reached the extremity of the tunnel his
amazed eyes saw nothing but a great cage of human animals pressed
tightly together behind bars. There Was a click, and the whole cage sank
from his sight into the earth.

He felt that there was more than he had dreamt of in the city of
miracles. In a couple of minutes another cage rose into the tunnel at a
different point, vomited its captives and descended swiftly again with
Priam and many others, and threw him and the rest out into a white mine
consisting of numberless galleries. He ran about these interminable
galleries underneath London, at the bidding of painted hands, for a
considerable time, and occasionally magic trains without engines swept
across his vision. But he could not find even the spirit of Mrs. Alice
Challice in this nether world.

_The Nest_

On letter-paper headed "Grand Babylon Hotel, London," he was writing in
a disguised backward hand a note to the following effect: "Duncan Farll,
Esq. Sir,--If any letters or telegrams arrive for me at Selwood Terrace,
be good enough to have them forwarded to me at once to the above
address.--Yours truly, H. Leek." It cost him something to sign the name
of the dead man; but he instinctively guessed that Duncan Farll might be
a sieve which (owing to its legal-mindedness) would easily get clogged
up even by a slight suspicion. Hence, in order to be sure of receiving a
possible letter or telegram from Mrs. Challice, he must openly label
himself as Henry Leek. He had lost Mrs. Challice; there was no address
on her letter; he only knew that she lived at or near Putney, and the
sole hope of finding her again lay in the fact that she had the Selwood
Terrace address. He wanted to find her again; he desired that ardently,
if merely to explain to her that their separation was due to a sudden
caprice of his hat, and that he had searched for her everywhere in the
mine, anxiously, desperately. She would surely not imagine that he had
slipped away from her on purpose? No! And yet, if incapable of such an
enormity, why had she not waited for him on one of the platforms?
However, he hoped for the best. The best was a telegram; the second-best
a letter. On receipt of which he would fly to her to explain.... And
besides, he wanted to see her--simply. Her answer to his suggestion of a
music-hall, and