ater, a belated reveler
in evening clothes. That sense of unreality assailed me again. Out there
in the gray mists a man who was vested with powers which rendered him a
law unto himself, who had the British Government behind him in all that
he might choose to do, who had been summoned from Rangoon to London on
singular and dangerous business, was employing himself with a plate of
cold turbot, a jug of milk, and a trowel!

Away to the right, and just barely visible, a tramcar stopped by the
common; then proceeded on its way, coming in a westerly direction. Its
lights twinkled yellowly through the grayness, but I was less concerned
with the approaching car than with the solitary traveler who had
descended from it.

As the car went rocking by below me, I strained my eyes in an endeavor
more clearly to discern the figure, which, leaving the highroad, had
struck out across the common. It was that of a woman, who seemingly
carried a bulky bag or parcel.

One must be a gross materialist to doubt that there are latent powers in
man which man, in modern times, neglects, or knows not how to develop. I
became suddenly conscious of a burning curiosity respecting this lonely
traveler who traveled at an hour so strange. With no definite plan in
mind, I went downstairs, took a cap from the rack, and walked briskly
out of the house and across the common in a direction which I thought
would enable me to head off the woman.

I had slightly miscalculated the distance, as Fate would have it, and
with a patch of gorse effectually screening my approach, I came upon
her, kneeling on the damp grass and unfastening the bundle which had
attracted my attention. I stopped and watched her.

She was dressed in bedraggled fashion in rusty black, wore a common
black straw hat and a thick veil; but it seemed to me that the dexterous
hands at work untying the bundle were slim and white; and I perceived a
pair of hideous cotton gloves lying on the turf beside her. As she threw
open the wrappings and lifted out something that looked like a
small shrimping net, I stepped around the bush, crossed silently the
intervening patch of grass, and stood beside her.

A faint breath of perfume reached me--of a perfume which, like the
secret incense of Ancient Egypt, seemed to assail my soul. The glamour
of the Orient was in that subtle essence; and I only knew one woman who
used it. I bent over the kneeling figure.

"Good morning," I said; "can I assist you