His mechanical advance had brought him now to the turn into the narrower street. In three minutes he would be in Christie’s room! He took off his hat and looked up at the drifting rain-clouds. The gusty rain made it impossible for him to keep his eyes open; but with his eyelids tight shut he cursed the power behind life. “You Mukalog up there!” he muttered. “You scurvy Mukalog up there!”

It was not ten minutes past nine by the small clock upon Christie’s mantelpiece when she and Wolf returned to her sitting-room and closed the door, after washing up the supper-things in the little alcove between that room and the girl’s bedroom.

Wolf sank down in the chair by the fire which faced the window, and leisurely lit a cigarette; while Christie, seated upon a four-legged stool opposite him, a stool embroidered with pale early-Victorian pansies by the hands of her mother, leaned forward towards the bars, and with a thin outstretched bare arm prodded the coals into flame.