cordance with those three feelings was the progress of his walk. He
started from the door with the fixed resolve to go home and stay there
quietly till Keith came. He was in Keith's hands, Keith would know what
was to be done. But he had not gone three hundred yards before he felt
so utterly weary, body and soul, that if he had but had a pistol in his
pocket he would have shot himself in the street. Not even the thought of
the girl--this young unfortunate with her strange devotion, who had kept
him straight these last five months, who had roused in him a depth of
feeling he had never known before--would have availed against that sudden
black defection. Why go on--a waif at the mercy of his own nature, a
straw blown here and there by every gust which rose in him? Why not have
done with it for ever, and take it out in sleep?

He was approaching the fatal street, where he and the girl, that early
morning, had spent the hours clutched together, trying in the refuge of
love to forget for a moment their horror and fear. Should he go in? He
had promised Keith not to. Why had he promised? He caught sight of
himself in a chemist's lighted window. Miserable, shadowy brute! And he
remembered suddenly a dog he had picked up once in the streets of Pera, a
black-and-white creature--different from the other dogs, not one of their
breed, a pariah of pariahs, who had strayed there somehow. He had taken
it home to the house where he was staying, contrary to all custom of the
country; had got fond of it; had shot it himself, sooner than leave it
behind again to the mercies of its own kind in the streets. Twelve years
ago! And those sleevelinks made of little Turkish coins he had brought
back for the girl at the hairdresser's in Chancery Lane where he used to
get shaved--pretty creature, like a wild rose. He had asked of her a
kiss for payment. What queer emotion when she put her face forward to
his lips--a sort of passionate tenderness and shame, at the softness and
warmth of that flushed cheek, at her beauty and trustful gratitude. She
would soon have given herself to him--that one! He had never gone there
again! And to this day he did not know why he had abstained; to this day
he did not know whether he were glad or sorry not to have plucked that
rose. He must surely have been very different then! Queer business,
life--queer, queer business!--to go through it never knowing what you
would do next. Ah! to be like Keit