ws flitted across the sleek green sward. The porter
in his bright uniform, cocked hat, and brass buttons, explained the
way out to a woman. Her child wore a red sash and stooped to play
with a cat that came along the railings, its tail high in the air.

"They know nothing of Lily Young," Mike said to himself; and knowing
the porter could not interfere, he wondered what he would think if he
knew all. "If she comes nothing can save her, she must and shall be
mine."

Waterloo Bridge stood high above the river, level and lovely. Over
Charing Cross the brightness was full of spires and pinnacles, but
Southwark shore was lost in flat dimness. Then the sun glowed and
Westminster ascended tall and romantic, St. Thomas's and St. John's
floating in pale enchantment, and beneath the haze that heaved and
drifted, revealing coal-barges moored by the Southwark shore, lay a
sheet of gold. The candour of the morning laughed upon the river;
and there came a little steamer into the dazzling water, her smoke
heeling over, coiling and uncoiling like a snake, and casting
tremendous shadow--in her train a line of boats laden to the edge
with deal planks. Then the haze heaved and London disappeared, became
again a gray city, faint and far away--faint as spires seem in a
dream. Again and again the haze wreathed and went out, discovering
wharfs and gold inscriptions, uncovering barges aground upon the
purple slime of the Southwark shore, their yellow yards pointing like
birds with outstretched necks.

The smoke of the little steamer curled and rolled over, now like a
great snake, now like a great bird hovering with a snake in its
talons; and the little steamer made pluckily for Blackfriars. Carts
and hansoms, vans and brewers' vans, all silhouetting. Trains slip
past, obliterating with white whiffs the delicate distances, the
perplexing distances that in London are delicate and perplexing as
a spider's web. Great hay-boats yellow in the sun, brown in the
shadow--great hay-boats came by, their sails scarce filled with the
light breeze; standing high, they sailed slowly and picturesquely,
with men thrown in all attitudes; somnolent in sunshine and pungent
odour--one only at work, wielding the great rudder.

"Ah! if she would not disappoint me; if she would only come; I would
give my life not to be disappointed.... Three o'clock! She said she
would be here by three, if she came at all. I think I could love
her--I am sure of it; it would be im