and stopped precisely at the door of No. 6. It was a matter of
honour with him to arrive thus. Not for a million would he have walked
the machine up the alley. He got off, sounded a peremptory call on the
horn, and tattooed with the knocker. No answer came. An apprehension
visited him. By the last post on the previous night he had received a
special invitation to breakfast from Marguerite. Never had he been kept
waiting at the door. He knocked again. Then he heard a voice from the
side of the studio:

"Come round here, George."

In the side of the studio was a very small window from which the girls,
when unpresentable, would parley with early tradesmen. Agg was at the
window. He could see only her head and neck, framed by the window. Her
short hair was tousled, and she held a dressing-gown tight about her
neck. For the first time she seemed to him like a real feminine girl,
and her tones were soft as they never were when Marguerite was present
with her.

"I'm very sorry," she said. "You woke me. I was fast asleep. You can't
come in."

"Anything up?" he questioned, rather anxiously. "Where's Marguerite?"

"Oh, George! A dreadful night!" she answered, almost plaintively, almost
demanding sympathy from the male--she, Agg! "We were wakened up at two
o'clock. Mr. Prince came round to fetch Marguerite to go to No. 8."

"To go to No. 8?" he repeated, frightened, and wondered why he should be
frightened. "What on earth for?"

"Mrs. Haim very ill!" Agg paused. "Something about a baby."

"And did she go?"

"Yes; she put on her things and went off at once."

He was silent. He felt the rough grip of destiny, of some strange power
irresistible and unescapable, just as he had momentarily felt it in the
basement of No. 8 more than eighteen months before, when the outraged
Mr. Haim had quarrelled with him. The mere idea of Marguerite being at
No. 8 made him feel sick. He no longer believed in his luck. "How soon
d'ye think she'll be back?"

"I--I don't know, George. I should have thought she'd have been back
before this."

"I'll run round there," he said curtly.

Agg was disconcertingly, astoundingly sympathetic. Her attitude
increased his disturbance.

II

When George rang the bell at No. 8 Alexandra Grove his mysterious qualms
were intensified. He dreaded the moment when the door should open, even
though it should be opened by Marguerite herself. And yet he had a
tremendous desire to see Marguerite--merely to