him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him with new
significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his own spirits,
and, choosing a street at random, stepped boldly forward in the snow.

Two things preoccupied him as he went: the aspect of the gallows at
Montfaucon in this bright, windy phase of the night's existence, for
one; and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald head and
garland of red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept
quickening his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by
mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked back over his shoulder with
a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the only moving thing in the white
streets, except when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the
snow, which was beginning to freeze, in spouts of glittering dust.

Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a black clump and a couple of
lanterns. The clump was in motion, and the lanterns swung as though
carried by men walking. It was a patrol. And though it was merely
crossing his line of march he judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot as
speedily as he could. He was not in the humour to be challenged, and he
was conscious of making a very conspicuous mark upon the snow. Just on
his left hand there stood a great hotel, with some turrets and a large
porch before the door; it was half ruinous, he remembered, and had
long stood empty; and so he made three steps of it, and jumped into the
shelter of the porch. It was pretty dark inside, after the glimmer of
the snowy streets, and he was groping forward with outspread hands, when
he stumbled over some substance which offered an indescribable mixture
of resistances, hard and soft, firm and loose. His heart gave a leap,
and he sprang two steps back and stared dreadfully at the obstacle. Then
he gave a little laugh of relief. It was only a woman, and she dead. He
knelt beside her to make sure upon this latter point. She was freezing