straight before him into the yellowness of the haze.

"Who," he said after a moment of singular silence, "who are you?"

Antony Dart hesitated a few seconds, and at the end of his pause he put
his hand into his overcoat pocket.

"If you will come upstairs with me to the room where the girl Glad
lives, I will tell you," he said, "but before we go I want to hand
something over to you."

The curate turned an amazed gaze upon him.

"What is it?" he asked.

Dart withdrew his hand from his pocket, and the pistol was in it.

"I came out this morning to buy this," he said. "I intended--never mind
what I intended. A wrong turn taken in the fog brought me here. Take
this thing from me and keep it."

The curate took the pistol and put it into his own pocket without
comment. In the course of his labors he had seen desperate men and
desperate things many times. He had even been--at moments--a desperate
man thinking desperate things himself, though no human being had ever
suspected the fact. This man had faced some tragedy, he could see. Had
he been on the verge of a crime--had he looked murder in the eyes? What
had made him pause? Was it possible that the dream of Jinny Montaubyn
being in the air had reached his brain--his being?