On the afternoon of Christmas Eve they went, by her desire, to a church in Soho, where the Christmas Oratorio was being given; and coming away passed, by chance of a wrong turning, down Borrow Street.  Ugh!  How that startled moment, when the girl had pressed herself against him in the dark, and her terror-stricken whisper:  “Oh!  Who is it?” leaped out before him!  Always that business—­that ghastly business!  After the trial he would have another try to get them both away.  And he thrust his arm within his young daughter’s, hurrying her on, out of this street where shadows filled all the winter air.

But that evening when she had gone to bed he felt uncontrollably restless.  He had not seen Larry for weeks.  What was he about?  What desperations were hatching in his disorderly brain?  Was he very miserable; had he perhaps sunk into a stupor of debauchery?  And the old feeling of protectiveness rose up in him; a warmth born of long ago Christmas Eves, when they had stockings hung out in the night stuffed by a Santa Claus, whose hand never failed to tuck them up, whose kiss was their nightly waft into sleep.

Stars were sparkling out there over the river; the sky frosty-clear, and black.  Bells had not begun to ring as yet.  And obeying an obscure, deep impulse, Keith wrapped himself once more into his fur coat, pulled a motoring cap over his eyes, and sallied forth.  In the Strand he took a cab to Fitzroy Street.  There was no light in Larry’s windows, and on a card he saw the words “To Let.”  Gone!  Had he after all cleared out for good?  But how-without money?  And the girl?  Bells were ringing now in the silent frostiness.  Christmas Eve!  And Keith thought:  ’If only this wretched business were off my mind!  Monstrous that one should suffer for the faults of others!’ He took a route which led him past Borrow Street.  Solitude brooded there, and he walked resolutely down on the far side, looking hard at the girl’s window.  There was a light.  The curtains just failed to meet, so that a thin gleam shone through.  He crossed; and after glancing swiftly up and down, deliberately peered in.

He only stood there perhaps twenty seconds, but visual records gleaned in a moment sometimes outlast the visions of hours and days.  The electric light was not burning; but, in the centre of the room the girl was kneeling in her nightgown before a little table on which were four lighted candles.  Her arms were crossed on her breast; the candle-light shone on her fair cropped hair, on the profile of cheek and chin, on her bowed white neck.  For a moment he thought her alone; then behind her saw his brother in a sleeping suit, leaning against the wall, with arms crossed, watching.  It was the expression on his face which burned the whole thing in, so that always afterwards he was able to see that little scene—­such an expression as could never have been on the face of one even faintly conscious that he was watched