way of darting at the essential that set him apart from most men. Malling
remembered a horrible thing he had once seen in the Sahara, a running
gazelle killed by a falcon. The falcon, rising high in the blue air,
had followed the gazelle, had circled, poised, then shot down and, with
miraculous skill, struck into the gazelle's eye. Unerringly from above
it had chosen out of the vast desert the home for its cruel beak.
Somewhat in similar fashion, so Malling thought, Stepton rose above
things, circled, poised, sank, and struck into the heart of the truth
unerringly.

Perhaps he was able to do this because he was able to mount, falconwise!

Malling would have given a good deal to have Stepton with him in this
affair, despite the professor's repellent attitude toward the amateur.
Well, if there really was anything in it, if strangeness rose out of the
orthodox bosom of St. Joseph's, if he--Malling--found himself walking in
thick darkness, he meant to bring Stepton into the matter, whether at
Stepton's desire or against it. Meanwhile he would see if there was
enlightenment in Hornton Street.

On the Wednesday the spell of fine weather which had made London look
strangely vivacious broke up, and in the evening rain fell with a gentle
persistence. Blank grayness took the town. A breath as of deep autumn was
in the air. And the strange sadness of cities, which is like no other
sadness, held the spirit of Evelyn Malling as he walked under an umbrella
in the direction of Kensington High Street. He walked, to shake off
depression. But in his effort he did not succeed. All that he saw
deepened his melancholy; the soldiers starting out vaguely from barracks,
not knowing what to do, but free for a time, and hoping, a little
heavily, for some adventure to break the military monotony of their