in Superintendent Mansus, and if it is convenient to
you, as I hope it will be, I will report myself to him at 10.15. At any
rate, my dear T. X., I do not wish to mix you up in my affairs and if
you will let me do this business through Mansus I shall be very much
obliged to you.

"I know there is no great punishment awaiting me, because my pardon was
apparently signed on the night before my escape. I shall not have much
to tell you, because there is not much in the past two years that I
would care to recall. We endured a great deal of unhappiness and death
was very merciful when it took my beloved from me.

"Do you ever see Kara in these days?

"Will you tell Mansus to expect me at between ten and half-past, and if
he will give instructions to the officer on duty in the hall I will come
straight up to his room.

"With affectionate regards, my dear fellow, I am,

"Yours sincerely,

"JOHN LEXMAN."

T. X. read the letter over twice and his eyes were troubled.

"Poor girl," he said softly, and handed the letter to Mansus. "He
evidently wants to see you because he is afraid of using my friendship
to his advantage. I shall be here, nevertheless."

"What will be the formality?" asked Mansus.

"There will be no formality," said the other briskly. "I will secure the
necessary pardon from the Home Secretary and in point of fact I have it
already promised, in writing."

He walked back to Whitehall, his mind fully occupied with the momentous
events of the day. It was a raw February evening, sleet was falling
in the street, a piercing easterly wind drove even through his thick
overcoat. In such doorways as offered protection from the bitter
elements the wreckage of humanity which clings to the West end of
London, as the singed moth flutters about the flame that destroys it,
were huddled for warmth.

T. X. was a man of vast human sympathies.

All his experience with the criminal world, all his disappointments,
all his disillusions had failed to quench the pity for his unfortunate
fellows. He made it a rule on such nights as these, that if, by chance,
returning late to his office he should find such a shivering piece of
jetsam sheltering in his own doorway, he would give him or her the price
of a bed.

In his own quaint way he derived a certain speculative excitement from
this practice. If the doorway was empty he regarded himself as a winner,
if some one stood sheltered in the deep recess which is a feature of the