that it did not avail to make him pause. To the contrary he disregarded it
resolutely; mad, impertinent, justified of his unnamed apprehensions, or
simply addled,--he held on his way.

He turned up Frognall Street with the manner of one out for a leisurely
evening stroll. Simultaneously, from the farther corner, another pedestrian
debouched, into the thoroughfare--a mere moving shadow at that distance,
brother to blacker shadows that skulked in the fenced areas and unlively
entries of that poorly lighted block. The hush was something beyond belief,
when one remembered the nearness of blatant Tottenham Court Road.

Kirkwood conceived a wholly senseless curiosity about the other wayfarer.
The man was walking rapidly, heels ringing with uncouth loudness, cane
tapping the flagging at brief intervals. Both sounds ceased abruptly as
their cause turned in beneath one of the porticos. In the emphatic and
unnatural quiet that followed, Kirkwood, stepping more lightly, fancied
that another shadow followed the first, noiselessly and with furtive
stealth.

Could it be Number 9 into which they had passed? The American's heart beat
a livelier tempo at the suggestion. If it had not been Number 9--he was
still too far away to tell--it was certainly one of the dwellings adjacent
thereunto. The improbable possibility (But why improbable?) that the girl
was being joined by her father, or by friends, annoyed him with illogical
intensity. He mended his own pace, designing to pass whichever house it
might be before the door should be closed; thought better of this, and
slowed up again, anathematizing himself with much excuse for being the
inquisitive dolt that he was.

Approaching Number 9 with laggard feet, he manufactured a desire to light