At length, when they were but some steps apart, he saw her eyes brim over, and she reached out both her hands in eloquent appeal.

‘Are you an English gentleman?’ she cried.

The unhappy Challoner regarded her with consternation. He was the spirit of fine courtesy, and would have blushed to fail in his devoirs to any lady; but, in the other scale, he was a man averse from amorous adventures. He looked east and west; but the houses that looked down upon this interview remained inexorably shut; and he saw himself, though in the full glare of the day’s eye, cut off from any human intervention. His looks returned at last upon the suppliant. He remarked with irritation that she was charming both in face and figure, elegantly dressed and gloved; a lady undeniable; the picture of distress and innocence; weeping and lost in the city of diurnal sleep.

‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I protest you have no cause to fear intrusion; and if I have appeared to follow you, the fault is in this street, which has deceived us both.’ An unmistakable relief appeared upon the lady’s face. ‘I might have guessed it!’ she exclaimed. ‘Thank you a thousand times! But at this hour, in this appalling silence, and among all these staring windows, I am lost in terrors—oh, lost in them!’ she cried, her face blanching at the words. ‘I beg you to lend me your arm,’ she added with the loveliest, suppliant inflection. ‘I dare not go alone; my nerve is gone—I had a shock, oh, what a shock! I beg of you to be my escort.’

‘My dear madam,’ responded Challoner heavily, ‘my arm is at your service.’

‘She took it and clung to it for a moment, struggling with her sobs; and the next, with feverish hurry, began to lead him in the direction of the city. One thing was plain, among so much that was obscure: it was plain her fears were genuine. Still, as she went, she spied around as if for dangers; and now she would shiver like a person in a chill, and now clutch his arm in hers. To Challoner her terror was at once repugnant and infectious; it gained and mastered, while it still offended him; and he wailed in spirit and longed for release.

‘Madam,’ he said at last, ‘I am, of course, charmed to be of use to any lady; but I confess I was bound in a direction opposite to that you follow, and a word of explanation—’

‘Hush!’ she sobbed, ‘not here—not here!’

The blood of Challoner ran cold. He might have thought the lady mad; but his memory 

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