me, you made me think of another lame
man. Do you remember how Jacob wrestled all night with an unknown
assailant? When dawn was breaking his thigh was out of joint, but he
refused to let his assailant go until he had asked his name. The
stranger would not tell him--instead he blessed him. And then Jacob knew
it was with God he had wrestled. When the sun rose and he went upon his
way, he halted upon his thigh. You have the look that I think he must
have had--the look of a man who has been maimed in trying to make God
answer questions. It's that look and your very lameness that have given
me back something that Lord Dawn took from me--something that he knew,
when he sent you, you could give me back: my faith in men, without
which a woman can have no happiness."

The ghostly world streamed by, silent-footed and mist-muffled. It was
the hour when children are born and weary people die--the hour of new
beginnings and ancient endings, when life and death, like soldiers
changing guard, salute at the cross-roads of the new day as friends.

At last he broke the silence. "I thought I had nothing to give you. I
felt so empty. You seemed so strong and immovable, like a still tree in
a forest that was storm-shaken. You made me feel that however the wind
raged, beneath your branches there would be always rest. I never
knew----" He paused as though he had forgotten what he had set out to
say. "I never guessed that a woman could be so good."

"Nor I that there was so good a man."

They clasped hands so tightly that it hurt. The sun was rising as they
entered London. Trees dripped gold and birds were chattering as they
drove into Brompton Square. It was only when they had halted before the
sleeping house, gay with flaming window-boxes, that she released his
hand. With the severance of contact he awoke from his trance and
remembered the errand that had brought them.

X

He had opened the door with his latch-key and had stood aside to allow
her to pass into the hall, when suddenly he clutched her arm and drew
her back. He signed to her to make no sound. Together they stood
listening. The early morning stillness was broken by a door shutting
smartly at the top of the house, a cheerful whistling and then the
unmistakeably firm step of a man descending.

Tabs had no man in his employ, so what was a man doing in his house?
There was no secretiveness about the stranger's movements; on the
contrary, there was an airy boldness.

The