Isaac’s start of surprise was genuine enough.

“I had forgotten her,” he admitted curtly.  “I saw the red fires that night and since then there has been no moment to breathe or think—­nothing to do but get ready for the end.  I had forgotten her.”

“She is safe, for the present,” Arnold told him.  “My circumstances have improved and I have taken a small flat in which there is a room for her.  This may do for the present, but Ruth, after all, is a young woman.  She is morbidly sensitive.  However willing I may be, and I am willing, it is not right that she should remain with me.  I have always taken it for granted that save for you she has no relatives and no friends.  Is this the truth?  Is there no one whom she has the right to ask for a home?”

Isaac was silent.  Some movements in the street below disturbed him, and he walked with catlike tread to the window, peering through a hole in the blind for several moments.  When he was satisfied that nothing unusual was transpiring, he came back.

“Listen,” he said hoarsely, “I am a dead man already in all but facts.  I can tell you nothing of Ruth’s relatives.  Better that she starved upon the streets than found them.  But there is her chance still.  My mind has been filled with big things and I had forgotten it.  Before we moved into Adam Street, the last doctor who saw Ruth suggested an operation.  He felt sure that it would be successful.  It was to cost forty guineas.  I have saved very nearly the whole of that money.  It stands in her name at the Westminster Savings Bank.  If she goes there and proves her identity, she can get it.  I saved that money—­God knows how!”

“What is the name of the doctor?” Arnold asked.

“His name was Heskell and he was at the London Hospital,” Isaac replied.  “Now I have done with you.  That is Ruth’s chance—­there is nothing else I can do.  Be off as quickly as you can.  If you give information as to my whereabouts, you will probably pay for it with your life, for there are others besides myself who are hiding in this house.  Now go.  Do you hear?”

Arnold’s anger against the man suddenly faded away.  It seemed to him, as he stood there, that he was but a product of the times, fashioned by the grinding wheel of circumstance, a physical wreck, a creature without love or life or hope.

“Isaac,” he said, “why don’t you try and escape?  Get away to some other country, out onto the land somewhere.  Leave the wrongs of these others to come right with time.  Work for your daily bread, give your brain a rest.”

Isaac made no reply.  Only his long, skinny forefinger shot out toward the door.  Arnold knew that he might just as well have been talking to the most hopeless lunatic ever confined in padded room.