r, in the mummy room, upon the
awful brevity of others. Since then Bartley had always thought of the
British Museum as the ultimate repository of mortality, where all the
dead things in the world were assembled to make one's hour of youth
the more precious. One trembled lest before he got out it might somehow
escape him, lest he might drop the glass from over-eagerness and see it
shivered on the stone floor at his feet. How one hid his youth under his
coat and hugged it! And how good it was to turn one's back upon all that
vaulted cold, to take Hilda's arm and hurry out of the great door and
down the steps into the sunlight among the pigeons--to know that
the warm and vital thing within him was still there and had not been
snatched away to flush Caesar's lean cheek or to feed the veins of some
bearded Assyrian king. They in their day had carried the flaming liquor,
but to-day was his! So the song used to run in his head those summer
mornings a dozen years ago. Alexander walked by the place very quietly,
as if he were afraid of waking some one.

He crossed Bedford Square and found the number he was looking for. The
house, a comfortable, well-kept place enough, was dark except for the
four front windows on the second floor, where a low, even light was
burning behind the white muslin sash curtains. Outside there were window
boxes, painted white and full of flowers. Bartley was making a third
round of the Square when he heard the far-flung hoof-beats of a
hansom-cab horse, driven rapidly. He looked at his watch, and was
astonished to find that it was a few minutes after twelve. He turned and
walked back along the iron railing as the cab came up to Hilda's number
and stopped. The hansom must have been one that she employed regularly,
for she did not stop to pay the driver. She stepped out quickly and
lightly. He heard her cheerful "Good-night, cabby," as she ran up the
steps and opened the door with a latchkey. In a few moments the lights
flared up brightly behind the white curtains, and as he walked away
he heard a window raised. But he had gone too far to look up without
turning round. He went back to his hotel, feeling that he had had a good
evening, and he slept well.

For the next few days Alexander was very busy. He took a desk in the
office of a Scotch engineering firm on Henrietta Street, and was at work
almost constantly. He avoided the clubs and usually dined alone at his
hotel. One afternoon, after he had tea, he