approaching or going from him. It
seemed somehow to recede, to have got almost to the end of the road,
past all the turnings; in which case, he reflected, the poor thing could
not be far from her own door.

There was no mistaking his. Among all those monotonous diminutive houses
it was distinct because of its lamp-post and its luxuriantly tufted
tree. The gas was still turned on in the passage, so that above the door
the white letters of its name, Granville, could be seen. There was no
other light in the windows. Entering, he closed the door noiselessly,
locked it, slipped the chain, and turned the gas out in the passage. The
lamplight from outside came in a turbid dusk through the thick glass of
the front door. A small bead of gas made twilight in the sitting-room at
the back.

The house was very still.

His mother had evidently gone to bed; but she had left a fire burning in
the sitting-room, and she had set a kettle all ready for boiling on the
gas ring, and on the table a cup and saucer, a tin of cocoa, and a plate
of bread and cheese.

He turned up the gas, put the tin of cocoa back into its cupboard, and
carried the bread and cheese to the larder in the scullery. He tried the
back door to make sure that it was locked, and paused for a moment on
the mat. He was thinking whether he had better not undress in there by
the fire and spread his damp things round the hearth to dry.

And as he stood there at the end of the passage he was aware of
something odd about the window of the front door. Properly speaking,
when the passage was dark, the window should have shown clear against
the light of the lamp outside, with its broad framework marking upon
this transparency the four arms of a cross. Now it showed a darkness, a
queer shadowy patch on the pane under the left arm of the cross.

The patch moved sideways to and fro along the lower panes; then suddenly
it rose, it shot up and broadened out, darkening half the window, its
form indiscernible under the covering cross.

And as it stood still there came a light tapping on the pane. He thought
that it was Winny, that she had run after him with some message, or
that perhaps somebody else had run to tell him that something was
wrong.

He went to the door; and as he went the tapping began again, louder,
faster, a nervous, desperate appeal.

He opened the door, and the lamplight showed them to each other.

"Good God!" He muttered it. "What are you doing here?"

I