In front of the Embankment, a few yards out into the stream, was moored a string of barges; between them and the shore the reflected lamp-light made one unbroken breadth of radiance, blackening the mid-current.  From that the eye rose to St. Thomas’s Hospital, spreading block after block, its windows telling of the manifold woe within.  Nearer was the Archbishop’s Palace, dark, lifeless; the roofs were defined against a sky made lurid by the streets of Lambeth.  On the pier below signalled two crimson lights.

The church bells kept up their clangorous discord, softened at times by the wind.  A steamboat came fretting up the stream; when it had passed under the bridge, its spreading track caught the reflected gleams and flung them away to die on unsearchable depths.  Then issued from beneath a barge with set sail, making way with wind and tide; in silence it moved onwards, its sail dark and ghastly, till the further bridge swallowed it.

The bells ceased.  Gilbert bent his head and listened to the rush of the water, voiceful, mysterious.  Sometimes he had stood there and wished that the dread tide could whelm him.  His mood was far other now; some power he did not understand had brought him here as to the place where he could best realise this great joy that had befallen him.

But the wind blew piercingly, and when at length he moved from the parapet, he found that his arms were quite numb; doubtless he had stood longer than he thought.  Instead of returning by the direct way, he walked along the Embankment It was all but deserted; the tread of a policeman echoed from the distance.  But in spite of the bitter sky, two people were sitting together on one of the benches—­ a young man and a work-girl; they were speaking scarcely above a whisper.  Gilbert averted his face as he passed them, and for the moment his eyes had their pain-stricken look.

Issuing into Westminster Bridge Road, he found himself once more amid a throng.  And before he had gone far he recognised a figure that walked just ahead of him.  It was Ackroyd; he was accompanied by a girl of whom Gilbert had no knowledge—­Miss Totty Nancarrow.  They were talking in a merry, careless way:  Ackroyd smoked a cigar, and Totty walked with her usual independence, with that swaying of the haunches and swing of the hands with palm turned outwards which is characteristic of the London work-girl.  Her laugh now and then rose to a high note; her companion threw back his head and joined in the mirth.  Clearly Ackroyd was in a way to recover his spirits.

At the junction of two ways they stopped.  Gilbert stopped too, for he did not care to pass them and be recognised.  He crossed the road, and from the other side watched them as they stood talking.  Now they were taking leave of each other.  Ackroyd appeared to hold the girl’s hand longer than she liked; when she struggled to get away, he suddenly bent forward and snatched a kiss.  With a gesture of indignation she escaped from him.