something of a like nature had fallen upon the town again. The
gas-light on the landings and in the melancholy hall burned feebly--so
feebly that one got but a vague view of the rickety hat-stand and the
shabby overcoats and head-gear hanging upon it. It was well for him
that he had but a corner or so to turn before he reached the pawnshop in
whose window he had seen the pistol he intended to buy.

When he opened the street-door he saw that the fog was, upon the whole,
perhaps even heavier and more obscuring, if possible, than the one so
well remembered. He could not see anything three feet before him, he
could not see with distinctness anything two feet ahead. The sensation
of stepping forward was uncertain and mysterious enough to be almost
appalling. A man not sufficiently cautious might have fallen into any
open hole in his path. Antony Dart kept as closely as possible to the
sides of the houses. It would have been easy to walk off the pavement
into the middle of the street but for the edges of the curb and the step
downward from its level. Traffic had almost absolutely ceased, though
in the more important streets link-boys were making efforts to guide
men or four-wheelers slowly along. The blind feeling of the thing was
rather awful. Though but few pedestrians were out, Dart found himself
once or twice brushing against or coming into forcible contact with men
feeling their way about like himself.

"One turn to the right," he repeated mentally, "two to the left, and the
place is at the corner of the other side of the street."

He managed to reach it at last, but it had been a slow, and therefore,
long journey. All the gas-jets the little shop owned were lighted, but
even under their flare the articles in the window--the one or two once
cheaply gaudy dresses and shawls and men's garments--hung in the haze