ey needed. He snored in mellow murmurs from behind
his bandanna, and they sat and talked together in low tones lest they
might awaken him, until the time came for parting.

Outside the mist had given place to a dull persistent rain, and a
peevish wind was complaining in area and chimney cowl. Philip turned to
the street with a pleasantly haunting vision of Patty's vivacious face
outlined against the warmth and brightness of the hall. The touch of her
good-night kiss lingered on his lips like live velvet, and he carried
warmth and brightness enough within him to defy all the rain that ever
rained, and all the wind that ever blew on smoky London.

The rain had cleared the streets, and the occasional gleam of a
policeman's cape or a furtive figure seeking the shelter of a doorway
against the drifting showers was all he saw as he bored his way against
the rising wind to the corner of Holborn. He was so absorbed by that
fancy of music to which his own quick tread kept time that a shuffling
step behind him rapidly drawing nearer failed to reach his sense. But as
he came to the corner, a hand clutched his arm.

He turned, with the quick defensive gesture natural to a man so accosted
at such a time, and faced the unexpected figure. An old man, clad in
filthy fluttering rags, stood staring at him, with both hands stretched
out. The rags shook as much with the horrible cough that tore him as
with the cruel wind. He was a dreadful creature, with watery eyes, and a
head and moustache of dirty gray. His long and unvenerable hairs strayed
loose beneath the dunghill relic which crowned them. The rain was in his
hair and beard, and had so soaked his tattered dress that it clung
to him like the feathers of a drenched fowl. He shook and wheezed and
panted, and gripped the air with tremulous fingers, and through the
rents in his clothing his white flesh gleamed in the gaslight.

The look of surprise and pity which Philip bent upon this unclean
apparition was startled into one of sudden fear and horror. In the
very instant when these emotions struck him, they were reflected in the
other's face. The man made a motion to run, but Philip clutched his arm,
and he stood cowering and unresisting.

'You! Here in London?'

'Phil,' said the spectre imploringly, 'for God's sake help me. I didn't
know it was you, when I followed you. I thought----' his voice trailed
into silence.

'You have come to this?'

'Yes, Phil; this is what I've come