young man. He decided suddenly that he would go and see
me. He found an Isvostchick, but when they reached the Ekaterinsgofsky
Canal the surly coachman refused to drive further, saying that his horse
had gone lame, and that this was as far as he had bargained to go.

Henry was forced to leave the cab, and then found himself outside the
little people's cinema, where he had once been with Vera and myself.

He knew that my rooms were not far away, and he started off beside the
white and silent canal, wondering why he had come, and wishing he were
back in bed.

There was still a great deal of the baby in Henry, and ghosts and giants
and scaly-headed monsters were not incredibilities to his young
imagination. As he left the main thoroughfare and turned down past the
widening docks, he suddenly knew that he was terrified. There had been
stories of wild attacks on rich strangers, sand-bagging and the rest,
often enough, but it was not of that kind of thing that he was afraid.
He told me afterwards that he expected to see "long thick crawling
creatures" creeping towards him over the ice. He continually turned
round to see whether some one were following him. When he crossed the
tumbledown bridge that led to my island it seemed that he was absolutely
alone in the whole world. The masts of the ships dim through the cold
mist were like tangled spiders' webs. A strange hard red moon peered
over the towers and chimneys of the distant dockyard. The ice was
limitless, and of a dirty grey pallor, with black shadows streaking it.
My island must have looked desolate enough, with its dirty snow-heaps,
old boards and scrap-iron and tumbledown cottages.

Again, as on his first arrival in Petrograd, Henry was faced by the
solemn fact that events are so often romantic in retrospect, but grimly
realistic in experience. He reached my lodging and found the door open.
He climbed the dark rickety stairs and entered my sitting-room. The
blinds were not drawn, and the red moon peered through on to the grey
shadows that the ice beyond always flung. The stove was not burning, the
room was cold and deserted. Henry called my name and there was no
answer. He went into my bedroom and there was no one there. He came back
and stood there listening.

He could hear the creaking of some bar beyond the window and the
melancholy whistle of a distant train.

He was held there, as though spellbound. Suddenly he thought that he
heard some one climbing the st