ghts, patches of opaque rayless crimson, added to
the confusion. There were people moving, however, faceless ghosts with
loud footfalls, feeling their way hesitatingly, and among them Mr.
Ricardo vanished. Almost at once Stonehouse lost his own bearings. In
the complete paralysis of all sense of direction which only fog can
produce, he crossed the wide street twice without knowing it. Then he
came up suddenly under the spread statue of Boadicea and into little
knots of people. A policeman was trying to move them on without
success. They hung about hopefully like children who cannot be
convinced that a show is really over.

"It's no good messing round here. You aren't helping anyone. Better
be getting home."

Stonehouse knew what had happened. It was extraordinary how sure he
was. It was almost as though he had known all along. But he said
mechanically to one slouching shadow:

"What is it?"

A face, dripping and livid in the fog, like the face of a dead man,
gaped at him.

"Some old fellow gone over--no, he didn't tumble, I tell yer. You
cawn't tumble over a four-foot parapet. Chucked 'isself, and I don't
blame 'im. One of them police-launches 'as gone out to fish 'im out.
But they won't get 'im. Not now, anyway. Can't see two feet in front
of yer, and the tide running out fast."

Stonehouse felt his way to the parapet and peered over. Above the
water the fog was pitch-black and moving. It looked a solid mass. He
could almost hear it slapping softly against the pillars of the bridge
as it flowed seawards. By now Mr. Ricardo had travelled with it a long
way. His death did not seem to Stonehouse tragic, but only inevitable
and ironical. It was as though someone had played a grave and
significant, not unkindly, joke at Mr. Ricardo's expense. Nor did
Stonehouse feel remorse, for he knew that he could have done nothing.
As Mr. Ricardo had said, it was not material things that had mattered.
He had not killed himself because he was starving, but because the long
struggle of his spirit with the enigma of life had reached its crisis.
He had gone out to meet it with a superb gesture of defiance, which had
also been the signal of surrender and acknowledgment.

The crowd had moved on at last. In the muffled silence and darkness
Stonehouse's thoughts became shadowy and fantastic. Though he did not
grieve he knew that a stone had shifted under the foundations of his
mental security. Death took on a