successful, fulfilling his dream.

At this moment he noticed a figure pass the doorway in whose shadow he
was, and he exclaimed within himself incredulously:

"That is Christine!"

In the shortest possible delay he said "Good-night" to his
acquaintance, and jumped down the steps and followed eastwards the
figure. He followed warily, for already the strange and distressing
idea had occurred to him that he must not overtake her--if she it was.
It was she. He caught sight of her again in the thick obscurity by the
prison-wall of Devonshire House. He recognised the peculiar brim of
the new hat and the new "military" umbrella held on the wrist by a
thong.

What was she doing abroad? She could not be going to a theatre. She
had not a friend in London. He was her London. And la mère Gaston was
not with her. Theoretically, of course, she was free. He had laid
down no law. But it had been clearly understood between them that she
should never emerge at night alone. She herself had promulgated the
rule, for she had a sense of propriety and a strong sense of reality.
She had belonged to the class which respectable, broadminded women,
when they bantered G.J., always called "the pretty ladies," and as a
postulant for respectability she had for her own satisfaction to
mind her p's and q's. She could not afford not to keep herself above
suspicion.

She had been a courtesan. Did she look like one? As an individual
figure in repose, no! None could have said that she did. He had long