He walked slowly away, debating where to turn his steps.  An outfitter’s shop displaying overcoats gave him a bright idea.  He walked inside and selected a long dark coat which reached to his heels, putting it on over the light and fashionable coat he was wearing.  The shopman seemed surprised at his choice, but made no comment as he took his money and handed him his change.  Charles caught a glimpse of himself as he went out, and was satisfied with his changed appearance.  In that shapeless garment he was no longer likely to catch the eye of any unduly curious observer as a “well-dressed” man.

He now walked swiftly.  Turning out of Chandos Street from the Strand, he avoided the brightly lit proximity of Leicester Square, and plunged into the crooked dark streets on the other side of Charing Cross Road.  He reached New Oxford Street, crossed it, and continued along obscure streets, his head bent forward, in the unconscious habit of a man thinking deeply as he went.

In the first feeling of dismay at the discovery that the police were looking for him he had been overwhelmed by a sense of catastrophe.  With the passing of that phase he was able to consider the situation with a cooler brain, and it now seemed to him that his position was not so precarious as he deemed it in the light of that shock.  He knew London, and might be able to evade arrest indefinitely if he took precautions and avoided risks.  But Sisily was in different case.  He recalled her telling him that she had only been in London once, as a child with her father.  Her inexperience of London was her greatest danger, because it was likely to attract attention.  The only one to whom she could look for help was himself.

His determination to find her was doggedly renewed as he thought of that.  He accepted the lengthened odds against him with the desperate dark courage of a spirit which had always regarded life as a gamble against unseen forces holding marked cards.  The police were searching for him?  Very well.  He would pit his wits against theirs, and continue his own search for Sisily with a caution he had hitherto disdained to use.

Courage and caution!  Those were the two qualities he must use in adroit combination.  The plight of both Sisily and himself was desperate enough now without giving the enemy a chance by recklessness.  He was like a man rowing a small boat in the immensity of a dark sea which threatened every moment to engulf him.  Sisily was somewhere in that darkness, and she must be rescued.  If his own cockleshell went down there could be no succour for her.  That was a thought to make him keep afloat—­to keep on rowing.

And suppose that he did find her, as he believed he would, sooner or later—­given time.  What was to happen then?