shades, had no words to describe to
himself. But he saw it, nevertheless a gravity, a character of sad
and tragic composure, that look of defeat which is prouder than any
victory; it waked his imagination.

"Something wrong!" he said to himself vaguely, and continued to
follow.

At the southern end of the bridge she turned her back to the sun and
went east along the quay where the second-hand booksellers lounged
beside their wares. She neither hurried nor slackened that deliberate
pace of hers; Raleigh, keeping well behind, his wits at work acutely,
wondered what it reminded him of, that slow trudge over the
pavements. It was when the booksellers were left behind that an
incident enlightened him.

She stopped for a minute and leaned upon the parapet; he crossed the
road to be out of sight in case she should look back. She had been
carrying in her hand a purse, and now he saw her open it and
apparently search its interior, but idly and without interest as
though she knew already what to expect of it. Then she closed it and
tossed it over the parapet into the river.

"Ah!" Sudden comprehension rushed upon him; he knew now what that
slow, aimless gait suggested to him. He recalled evenings in London,
when he walked or drove through the lit streets and saw, here and
there, the figures of those homeless ones who walked walked always,
straying forward in a footsore progress till the night should be ripe
for them to sit down in some corner. And then, that shadow in her
face, that mouth, tight-held but still drooping; her way of looking
at the river! His hand, in his pocket, closed over the five-franc
piece which she had dropped there; he started across the road to
accost her forthwith, but at that moment she moved on again, and once
more he fell into step behind her.

There is a point, near the Ile de la Cite, where the Seine projects
an elbow; the quay goes round in a curve under high houses; a tree or
two overhangs the water, and there is a momentary space of quiet,
almost a privacy at the skirts of bristling Paris. Here, commonly,
men of leisure sit through the warm hours, torpidly fishing the
smooth green depth of water below; but now there was none. The girl
followed the elbow round and stopped at the angle of it. She leaned
her arms on the coping and gazed down at the quiet still water below.

She was looking at it with such a preoccupation that Raleigh was able
to come close to her before he spoke. He, too, put