broken, their panes stuffed with paper; washing hung from house to house.
The windows that were not broken were hermetically sealed and filled with
grimy plants and ferns, and here and there a photograph of an embarrassed
sailor or a smiling married couple or an overdressed young woman placed
face outward to the street. Bridge Street tumbled with a dirty absent-
mindedness into Pennicent Street. This, the main thoroughfare of Seatown,
must have been once a handsome cobbled walk by the river-side. The houses,
more than in Bridge Street, showed by their pillared doorways and their
faded red brick that they had once been gentlemen's residences, with
gardens, perhaps, running to the river's edge and a fine view of the
meadows and woods beyond. To-day all was shrouded in a mist that was never
stationary, that seemed alive in its shifting movement, revealing here a
window, there a door, now a chimney-pot, now steps that seemed to lead
into air, and the river, now at full tide and lapping the stone wall,
seemed its drunken bewildered voice.

"Bally pawns, that's what we are," Falk muttered again. It seemed to be
the logical conclusion of the thoughts that had worried him, likes flies,
during his walk. Some one lurched against him as he stayed for a moment to
search for the inn. A hot spasm of anger rose in him, so sudden and fierce
that he was frightened by it, as though he had seen his own face in a
mirror. But he said nothing. "Sorry," said a voice, and shadow faded into
shadow.

He found the "Dog and Pilchard" easily enough. Just beyond it the river
was caught into a kind of waterfall by a ridge of stone that projected
almost into mid-stream. At high tide it tumbled over this obstruction with
an astonished splash and gurgle. Even when the river was at its lowest
there was a dim chattering struggle at this point. Falk always connected
this noise with the inn and the power or enchantment of the inn that held