d unreasonable anger, wandered through the dark streets,
brooding. Thus aimlessly wandering, the remembrance of his young
Utopian imaginings came back to him to mock him. Dreams of universal
brotherhood, of equality, of harmony. He had already seen the apostles
of equality and brotherhood at work--on the banks of the Vilaine. And
realising how he himself, now reduced to the lowest level in the
social scale, hunted with insult from every haunt above that level,
yet loathed and abhorred the very thought of associating again with
his recent brothers in degradation, he laughed a laugh of bitter
self-contempt.

But the night was piercing cold; and, in time, the question arose
whether the stench and closeness of a riverside eating-house would not
be more endurable than the cutting wind, the sleet, and the sharper
pangs of hunger.

His roaming had brought him once more to that quarter of the town
"best suited to the likes of him," according to the innkeeper's
opinion, and he found himself actually seeking a house of
entertainment in the slimy, ill-lighted narrow street, when, from out
the dimness, running towards him, with bare feet paddling in the
sludge, came a slatternly girl, with unkempt wisps of red hair hanging
over her face under the tartan shawl.

"Run, run, Jack," she cried, hoarsely, as she passed by breathless,
"t' gang's comin' up...."

A sudden loathly fear seized Adrian by the heart. He too, took to his
heels by the side of the slut with all the swiftness his tired frame
could muster.

"I'm going to warn my Jo," she gasped, as, jostling each other, they
darted through a maze of nameless alleys.

And then as, spent with running, they emerged at last into a broader
street, it was to find themselves in the very midst of another party
of man-of-war's men, whose brass belt-buckles glinted under the
flickering light of the oil-lamp swinging across the way.

Adrian stopped dead short and looked at the girl in mute reproach.

"May God strike me dead," she screamed, clapping her hands together,
"if I knew the bloody thieves were there! Oh, my bonny lad, I meant to
save ye!" And as her words rang in the air two sailors had Adrian by
the collar and a facetious bluejacket seized her round the waist with
hideous bantering.

A very young officer, wrapped up in a cloak, stood a few paces apart
calmly looking on. To him Adrian called out in fierce, yet anguished,
expostulation:

"I am a free and independent subjec