staurants in
which they had dined. At a corner of the ZEITZERSTRASSE, a hand-cart
had been overturned, and a crowd had gathered; for, no matter how busy
people were, they had time to gape and stare; and they were now as
eager as children to observe this incident, in the development of which
a stout policeman was wordily authoritative. Maurice found that he had
loitered with the rest, to watch the gathering up of the spilt wares,
and to hear the ensuing altercation between hawker and policeman. On
turning to walk on again, his eye was caught and held by the tall
figure of a man who was going in the same direction as he, but at a
brisk pace, and several yards in front of him. This person must have
passed the group round the cart. Now, intervening heads and shoulders
divided them, obstructing Maurice's view; still, signs were not wanting
in him that his subliminal consciousness was beginning to recognise the
man who walked ahead. There was something oddly familiar in the gait,
in the droop of the shoulders, the nervous movement of the head, the
aimless motion of the dangling hands and arms--briefly, in all the
loosely hung body. And, besides this, the broad-brimmed felt hat ...
Good God! He stiffened, with a sudden start, and, in an instant, his
entire attention was concentrated in an effort to see the colour of the
hair under the hat. Was it red? He tried to strike out in lengthier
steps, but the legs of the man in front were longer, and his own
unruly. After a moment's indecision, however, he mastered them, and
then, so afraid was he of the other passing out of sight, that he all
but ran, and kept this pace up till he was close behind the man he
followed. There he fell into a walk again, but a weak and difficult
walk, for his heart was leaping in his chest. He had not been mistaken.
The person close before him, so close that he could almost have touched
him, was no other than Schilsky--the Schilsky of old, with the
insolent, short-sighted eyes, and the loose, easy walk.
Maurice followed him--followed warily and yet unreflectingly--right
down the long, populous street. Sometimes blindly, too, for, when the
street and all it contained swam before him, he was obliged to shut his
eyes. People looked with attention at him; he caught a glimpse of
himself in a barber's mirror, and saw that his face had turned a
greenish white. His mind was set on one point. Arrived at the corner
where the street ran out into the KONIGSPLATZ, w
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