ce, nor even from that young, lissome figure so
celebrated in Europe. There is a sixth sense--the sense of nearness to
what is familiar. When it awakes we call it premonition.

The shock of seeing her, the moment's exciting incredulity, passed
before he became aware that he was already following her through
swarming metropolitan throngs released from the toil of a long, wet
day in early spring.

Through every twilit avenue poured the crowds; through every
cross-street a rosy glory from the west was streaming; and in its
magic he saw her immortally transfigured, where the pink light
suffused the crossings, only to put on again her lovely mortality in
the shadowy avenue.

At Times Square she turned west, straight into the dazzling fire of
sunset, and he at her slender heels, not knowing why, not even asking
it of himself, not thinking, not caring.

A third figure followed them both.

The bronze giants south of them stirred, swung their great hammers
against the iron bell; strokes of the hour rang out above the din of
Herald Square, inaudible in the traffic roar another square away,
lost, drowned out long before the pleasant bell-notes penetrated to
Forty-second Street, into which they both had turned.

Yet, as though occultly conscious that some hour had struck on earth,
significant to her, she stopped, turned, and looked back--looked quite
through him, seeing neither him nor the one-eyed man who followed them
both--as though her line of vision were the East itself, where, across
the grey sea's peril, a thousand miles of cannon were sounding the
hour from the North Sea to the Alps.

He passed her at her very elbow--aware of her nearness, as though
suddenly close to a young orchard in April. The girl, too, resumed her
way, unconscious of him, of his youthful face set hard with controlled
emotion.

The one-eyed man followed them both.

A few steps further and she turned into the entrance to one of those
sprawling, pretentious restaurants, the sham magnificence of which
becomes grimy overnight. He halted, swung around, retraced his steps
and followed her. And at his heels two shapes followed them very
silently--her shadow and his own--so close together now, against the
stucco wall that they seemed like Destiny and Fate linked arm in arm.

The one-eyed man halted at the door for a few moments. Then he, too,
went in, dogged by his sinister shadow.

The red sunset's rays penetrated to the rotunda and were quenched