ds. His late need, his sense of void and
illimitable longing, tormented him ceaselessly. He was sick with
rebellion against life, an affair of cunning traps and mud and fog.
Above the obscured and huddled odium of the city the distances were
clear, serene. Above the degradation ... Susan. A tyrannical desire to
see her possessed him, an absolute necessity for the purification of her
mere presence. Unconsciously he quickened his step, charged with
purpose; but he couldn't go to the Academy now; it was six o'clock. He
must delay an hour at least. Habit prompted him to a supper which he
left untried on its plates, the lighting of a cigar, quickly cold,
forgot. At seven he hurried resolutely over the dark streets with the
dim luminosity of occasional gas lamps floating on the unstirring white
gloom. The bricks under foot were soggy, and the curved sign above her
entrance, the bare willows, dropped a pattering moisture.

She saw him immediately, not in the familiar office, but in a hall laid
with cold matting and nearly filled by a stairway, lit with a lamp at
the further end. "I am sorry," she told him; "I have no place to take
you. The rhetoric mistress is correcting papers there," she indicated
the shut door. He made no immediate answer, content to gaze at her
sensitive, appealing countenance. "It is so warm," she said finally,
colouring at his intentness, "and I have been indoors all day. I might
get my things. We could, perhaps ... a walk," she spoke rapidly, her
head bent from him. She drew back, then hesitated. "Very well," he
replied. Susan disappeared, but she quickly returned, in a little violet
bonnet bound and tied with black, and a dark azure velvet cloak furred
at her wrists and throat. She held a muff doubtfully; but, in the end,
took it with her.

Outside, the mist and night enveloped them in a close, damp veil. They
turned silently to the right, passing the narrow mouth of Currant Alley,
and Quince Street beyond. The bricks became precarious, and gave place
to a walk of boards; the corners about a broad, muddy way were built up;
but farther on the dwellings were scattered--lighted windows showed
dimly behind bare catalpas, iron fences enclosed orderly patches between
sodden flats, gas lamps grew fewer.

A deep, all-pervading contentment surrounded Jasper Penny, an
unreasoning, happy warmth. He said nothing, his stick now striking on
the boards, now sinking into earth, and gazed down at Susan, her face
hid