His lodgings were not far from the Embankment, and he knew at last that
he was wandering along it, and had reached one of the bridges. His mood
led him to turn in upon it, and when he reached an embrasure to stop
near it and lean upon the parapet looking down. He could not see the
water, the fog was too dense, but he could hear some faint splashing
against stones. He had taken no food and was rather faint. What a
strange thing it was to feel faint for want of food--to stand alone, cut
off from every other human being--everything done for. No wonder that
sometimes, particularly on such days as these, there were plunges made
from the parapet--no wonder. He leaned farther over and strained his
eyes to see some gleam of water through the yellowness. But it was not
to be done. He was thinking the inevitable thing, of course; but such a
plunge would not do for him. The other thing would destroy all traces.

As he drew back he heard something fall with the solid tinkling sound of
coin on the flag pavement. When he had been in the pawnbroker's shop he
had taken the gold from his purse and thrust it carelessly into his
waistcoat pocket, thinking that it would be easy to reach when he chose
to give it to one beggar or another, if he should see some wretch who
would be the better for it. Some movement he had made in bending had
caused a sovereign to slip out and it had fallen upon the stones.

He did not intend to pick it up, but in the moment in which he stood
looking down at it he heard close to him a shuffling movement. What he
had thought a bundle of rags or rubbish covered with sacking--some
tramp's deserted or forgotten belongings--was stirring. It was alive,
and as he bent to look at it the sacking divided itself, and a small
head, covered with a shock of brilliant red hair, thrust itself out, a
shrewd, small face turning to look up at him slyly with deep-set black
eyes.