Over the banister the child was leaning anxiously, watching me as I stumbled down the steps.  At their foot I turned and waved my hand and laughed, an odd, faint, far-away laugh that seemed to come from some one else; and then I went into the street and found myself crossing it, impelled by surging impulse to know—­

To know what?  At the foot of the rickety stairs leading to the high porch from which I had seen the girl come I stopped.  All I had been repressing, fighting, resisting for days past, had in a moment yielded to horror, and hurt that seemed past healing, and I was surrendering to what I should know was impossible.  I must be mad!

With a shudder that was half a sob I turned away and walked down the street and into the one which would lead to Scarborough Square.  As I walked my shoulders straightened.  What was the matter with me?  Was I becoming that which I loathed—­a suspicious, spying person?  I was insulting Selwyn.  He knew I hated mystery, however, knew the right of explanation was mine, knew that I expected of any man who was my friend that his life should be as open as my life.  If I had hurt him, angered him by my question when I last saw him, he had hurt, had angered me far more.  For now I was angry.  Did he imagine I was the sort of woman who accepted reticence with resignation?  I was not.

At the corner Mr. Fogg was standing in the door of his little shop, holding a blue bottle up to the light and examining it with critical care.  He had on his usual clothes of many colors, shabby from much wearing, but in his round, clean-shaven face, pink with health and inward cheer, was smiling serenity, and in his eyes a twinkle that yielded not to time or circumstance.  His second-hand bookshelf, his canary-birds and white rabbits, his fox-terriers and goldfish are friends that never fail, and in them he has found content.  His eagerness to chat occasionally with some one who cares, as he cares, for his beloved books, is not at times to be resisted, but I was in no mood to talk to-day.  I wondered if I could hurry by.

“Good morning!” The blue bottle, half filled with water, in which a tiny bulb was floating, was waved toward me, and a shaggy white head nodded at me.  “It’s a fine day, ain’t it?—­a fine day for snow.  Good and gray.  I think we’ll have some flakes before night.  Kinder feel like a boy again when it’s snowing.  I don’t know yet which season I like best.  Every one has got its glory.  What you been up to to-day?  Seeing some more things?”

I nodded.  “I wish I could come in, but I can’t.”  I shivered, though I was not cold.  “I am going up-town.”  A minute before I had no intention of going up-town, but to go indoors was suddenly impossible.  Whatever was possessing me must be fought off alone.  “I will bring you my copy of Men and Nations to-morrow.  Keep it as long as you wish.”