and how bright and gay her companionship had always been, how she had always laughed at the discomforts or the difficulties of our travels!  Surely we had been made for each other!  What strange wave of life was this that had broken us apart?  I looked towards my bedroom, dull and cheerless and empty.  From the open window the warm, wet, yellow fog was streaming in its soft wreaths through both rooms.  The roar from the stone-paved streets, crowded with incessant traffic, came up to me muffled through the fog.

After a time I rose, closed the windows, unpacked my things, and changed my clothes.  Then I went down at six to dine, as I wanted a long evening.  Some champagne cheered me, and as I sat in the long, crowded dining-room, alone at my small table, my heart began to beat again warmly at the thought of the new venture before me.  To-night?  What would it bring forth?  Should I find her?  The vitalising breath of excitement began to creep through me.  I finished my dinner hurriedly, swallowed my black coffee at a draught, and made my way down the room and out to the hall, putting on my hat and coat as I went.  I found the guide I had asked for when I first arrived at the hotel waiting for me.  He asked me mysteriously if I had put away my watch and divested myself of all jewellery, and I told him impatiently I had and showed him a small revolver I always carried.  When he was somewhat reassured I took the paper that Suzee had sent me out of my pocket and showed it to him.

“That’s where I want to go,” I said, “and if you know every hole and cranny of the place as I was told, I suppose you know that one.”

The guide grinned as he read the name.

“It’s the worst place in the whole town,” he remarked with a sort of admiring unction.  I evidently went up in his estimation as he recognised the acumen I had shewed in my choice.  I was a visitor worthy of his guidance, and he was put upon his mettle.

“The police don’t dare to go there, but they’ll let me in day or night.”

We had reached the door now and stepped into the street.  The fog had had its frolic down town, it seemed and had almost disappeared, rolling off to the sand dunes and the sea whence it had come.  The night was dark and fresh with the damp saltness of the shore; a few stars shone above.  The shops were still open, and their huge plate-glass windows blazed with light.  We walked rapidly through these streets towards the Chinese quarter where the noise and light ceased.  The streets were quiet and empty and seemed very clean.  The shops here were closed.  The lights few.  There was a fever of impatience in my veins.  I felt as when one is drawing near to an unknown combat:  a conflict the nature of which and ultimate result one does not know.

My rather shambling guide seemed amused at the pace at which I walked and giggled immoderately between remarks of his own which seemed to him to be appropriate to the occasion.  I hardly heard him.  At one moment I was lost in a bitter reflection of how many excursions and similar wanderings Viola had shared with me; at another, my mind seemed leaping eagerly forward, to seize this new joy in front of me.