Overhead, complaining as it swayed in the wind, hung the smirched and
weather-worn sign-board of the Hog-in-the-Pound public house; wherefrom
escaped sounds of such revelry by night as is indulged in by the British
working-man in hours of ease. At the curb in front of the house of
entertainment, dejected animals drooping between their shafts, two hansoms
stood in waiting, until such time as the lords of their destinies should
see fit to sally forth and inflict themselves upon a cab-hungry populace.
As Kirkwood turned, a third vehicle rumbled up out of the mews.

Kirkwood can close his eyes, even at this late day, and both see and hear
it all again--even as he can see the unbroken row of dingy dwellings that
lined his way back from Quadrant Mews to Frognall Street corner: all
drab and unkempt, all sporting in their fan-lights the legend and lure,
"Furnished Apartments."

For, between his curiosity about and his concern for the girl, he was being
led back to Number 9, by the nose, as it were,--hardly willingly, at best.
Profoundly stupefied by the contemplation of his own temerity, he yet
returned unfaltering. He who had for so long plumed himself upon his strict
supervision of his personal affairs and equally steadfast unconsciousness
of his neighbor's businesses, now found himself in the very act of pushing
in where he was not wanted: as he had been advised in well-nigh as many
words. He experienced an effect of standing to one side, a witness of
his own folly, with rising wonder, unable to credit the strength of
the infatuation which was placing him so conspicuously in the way of a
snubbing.

If perchance he were to meet the girl again as she was leaving Number
9,--what then? The contingency dismayed him incredibly, in view of the fact