e-making, after what I've said this morning. I should writhe
with the shame and the torture of it. Give me your thoughts to-day. Wear
a little mourning for the dead. It is all I ask of you."

"I should have done what you ask without the asking," I replied.

I kissed her hand, and went out into the street.

I had walked but a few blind steps when I became aware of the presence
and voice of Pasquale.

"Coming from Mrs. Mainwaring's? I am just on my way there to restore
her opera-glasses which I ran away with last night. What's her number? I
forget. I dropped in at Lingfield Terrace to inquire, but found you had
already started."

"Seventeen," I answered, mechanically.

"You are not looking well, my good friend," said he. "I hope last night
has not upset you. It's all bluff, you know, on the part of the precious
Hamdi."

"I dare say it was," I assented.

"And bluff on your part, too. I have never given your imaginative
faculties sufficient credit. It bowled Hamdi out clean."

"Yes," said I. "It bowled him out clean."

"Serve him right," said Pasquale. "He's the wickedest old thief unhung."

"Quite so," said I, "the wickedest old thief unhung."

Pasquale shook me by the arm.

"Are you a man or a phonograph? What on earth has happened to you?"

I think I envied the laughter in his handsome, dark face, and the
careless grace of the fellow as he stood beneath the dripping umbrella
debonair as a young prince, in perfectly fitting blue serge-he wore no
overcoat; mine was buttoned up to the chin, and immaculate suede gloves.

"What is it?" he repeated, gaily.

"I didn't sleep last night," said I, "my breakfast disagreed with me,
and it's raining in the most unpleasant manner."

Even while I was speaking he left my side and darted across the road.
In some astonishment I watched him for a moment from the kerb, and then
made my way slowly to the other side. I found him in conversation with
an emaciated, bedraggled woman standing by an enormous bundle, about
three times her own cubic bulk, which she had rested on the slimy
pavement. One hand pressed a panting bosom.

"You are going to carry that in your arms all the way to South
Kensington?" I heard him cry as I approached.

"Yes, sir," said the woman.

"Then you shan't. I'm not going to allow it. Catch hold of this."

The umbrella which he thrust out at her she clutched automatically,
to prevent it falling about her ears. The veto she received with a
wonder