She was, for her years, so ugly and so ancient, and hardened in voice and skin and manner that she fascinated him.  Not that a man who has no To-morrow in view is likely to be particularly conscious of mental processes.  He was done for, but he stood and stared at her.  What part of the Power moving the scheme of the universe stood near and thrust him on in the path designed he did not know then—­perhaps never did.  He was still holding on to the thing in his pocket, but he spoke to her again.

“What do you mean?” he asked glumly.

She sidled nearer, her sharp eyes on his face.

“I bin watchin’ yer,” she said.  “I sat down and pulled the sack over me ‘ead to breathe inside it an’ get a bit warm.  An’ I see yer come.  I knowed wot yer was after, I did.  I watched yer through a ’ole in me sack.  I wasn’t goin’ to call a copper.  I shouldn’t want ter be stopped meself if I made up me mind.  I seed a gal dragged out las’ week an’ it’d a broke yer ’art to see ’er tear ‘er clothes an’ scream.  Wot business ‘ad they preventin’ ‘er goin’ off quiet?  I wouldn’t ‘a’ stopped yer—­but w’en the quid fell, that made it different.”

“I—­” he said, feeling the foolishness of the statement, but making it, nevertheless, “I am ill.”

“Course yer ill.  It’s yer ‘ead.  Come along er me an’ get a cup er cawfee at a stand, an’ buck up.  If yer’ve give me that quid straight—­ wish-yer-may-die—­I’ll go with yer an’ get a cup myself.  I ain’t ’ad a bite since yesterday—­an’ ‘t wa’n’t nothin’ but a slice o’ polony sossidge I found on a dust-’eap.  Come on, mister.”

She pulled his coat with her cracked hand.  He glanced down at it mechanically, and saw that some of the fissures had bled and the roughened surface was smeared with the blood.  They stood together in the small space in which the fog enclosed them—­he and she—­the man with no To-morrow and the girl thing who seemed as old as himself, with her sharp, small nose and chin, her sharp eyes and voice—­and yet—­perhaps the fogs enclosing did it—­something drew them together in an uncanny way.  Something made him forget the lost clew to the lodging-house—­ something made him turn and go with her—­a thing led in the dark.

“How can you find your way?” he said.  “I lost mine.”

“There ain’t no fog can lose me,” she answered, shuffling along by his side; “‘sides, it’s goin’ to lift.  Look at that man comin’ to’ards us.”

It was true that they could see through the orange-colored mist the approaching figure of a man who was at a yard’s distance from them.  Yes, it was lifting slightly—­at least enough to allow of one’s making a guess at the direction in which one moved.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Apple Blossom Court,” she answered.  “The cawfee-stand’s in a street near it—­and there’s a shop where I can buy things.”

“Apple Blossom Court!” he ejaculated.  “What a name!”