"With you, Miss Pilgrim? Why, sure I will," he replied warmly, and
strode across the gutter to her side.

To the sergeant, watching dumbly this pairing and departure, he said
nothing; he did not even turn to enjoy his face.

It was strange to pass along that familiar street with her, to glance
down at her and see her forward bent face in profile against the dark
doorways leading to interiors whose secrets he knew. The drinking
dens were noisy at their feet; the tall houses were dark and sinister
above them. He heard her breath as she walked at his elbow in the
vicious chill of the evening and out upon the water, visible between
the sheds as a low green and a high white light sliding, slowly
across the night, an outgoing steamer wailed like a hoarse banshee.
Once upon a time he had seen the Black Hundred come roaring and
staggering along that street under the eyes of the ships, and had
backed into one of the doorways past which they now walked to fight
for his life. The memory of it came curiously to him now, as the girl
at his side led him on, hurrying to bring him to safety.

They turned a corner ere she spoke to him again, and advanced along a
street which showed a vista of receding darkness, beaded by the dull
house-lamps set over the courtyard gates. Not till then did she
slacken the hurry of her gait. She lifted her face towards him.

"But there was something, wasn't there?" she asked. "Between you and
that policeman, I mean. You weren't really just chatting?"

Waters shrugged the policeman into the void.

"It's nothin' that you'd need to worry about, Miss Pilgrim," he
answered. "He don't amount to anything."

She was still looking at him. She had on a big muffling coat and her
face lifted out of the high collar of it.

"But" she paused. "I was watching, you for a minute; I saw you go
back to talk to him," she said. "That's why I stopped. You see, that
day in the office, I was ever so sorry."

"Oh, that!" Waters was vaguely embarrassed; he was not used to
sympathy so openly expressed. "You mean Selby an' all that? That
didn't hurt me."

But she would not be denied. "It hurt me," she answered. "To see you
go out like that, so quietly, after asking for help and nobody to say
a word for you! I've been hoping ever since that I'd see you so that
I'd be able to tell you. Of course," she added, in the tone of one
who makes reasonable allowances, "of course, Mr. Selby's in a
difficult position; he has to con