auchery? And the old
feeling of protectiveness rose up in him; a warmth born of long ago
Christmas Eves, when they had stockings hung out in the night stuffed by
a Santa Claus, whose hand never failed to tuck them up, whose kiss was
their nightly waft into sleep.

Stars were sparkling out there over the river; the sky frosty-clear, and
black. Bells had not begun to ring as yet. And obeying an obscure, deep
impulse, Keith wrapped himself once more into his fur coat, pulled a
motoring cap over his eyes, and sallied forth. In the Strand he took a
cab to Fitzroy Street. There was no light in Larry's windows, and on a
card he saw the words "To Let." Gone! Had he after all cleared out for
good? But how-without money? And the girl? Bells were ringing now in
the silent frostiness. Christmas Eve! And Keith thought: 'If only this
wretched business were off my mind! Monstrous that one should suffer for
the faults of others!' He took a route which led him past Borrow Street.
Solitude brooded there, and he walked resolutely down on the far side,
looking hard at the girl's window. There was a light. The curtains just
failed to meet, so that a thin gleam shone through. He crossed; and
after glancing swiftly up and down, deliberately peered in.

He only stood there perhaps twenty seconds, but visual records gleaned in
a moment sometimes outlast the visions of hours and days. The electric
light was not burning; but, in the centre of the room the girl was
kneeling in her nightgown before a little table on which were four
lighted candles. Her arms were crossed on her breast; the candle-light
shone on her fair cropped hair, on the profile of cheek and chin, on her
bowed white neck. For a moment he thought her alone; then behind her saw
his brother in a sleeping suit, leaning against the wall, with arms
crossed, watching. It was the expression on his face which burned the
whole thing in, so that always afterwards he was able to see that little
scene--such an expression as could never have been on the face of one
even faintly conscious that he was watched by any living thing on earth.
The whole of Larry's heart and feeling seemed to have come up out of him.
Yearning, mockery, love, despair! The depth of his feeling for this
girl, his stress of mind, fears, hopes; the flotsam good and evil of his
soul, all transfigured there, exposed and unforgettable. The
candle-light shone upward on to his face, twisted by the strangest