The elderly gentleman did not again rebuke him. Even in such circumstances he was not one to hear what was not meant for his hearing. He thought the woman's face was a remarkable one, emaciated, pallid, and hunted in expression though it was. Those dark eyes seemed doubly large by contrast with the sunken cheeks--sunken for sure, by the ravages of direst want. The locks of auburn hair, which fell on either side of that low white forehead, could not hide the many lines of care and misery with which it was imprinted. She was gaunt and wasted too; her hands were as bird's claws, and she leaned heavily, almost lifelessly, against the stonework of the bridge. Starvation, outward and inward, was there in all its hideousness, having driven beauty far afield, and left the bare suggestion of what had been, as if to accentuate the more the horrible completeness of its work. Starvation was there in that uncertain, hesitating manner--starvation in the very shawl clutched strenuously with one hand to her bosom--starvation, which, having worn the body, strove now to break the spirit. But the spirit was strong in the woman, and while she was mute, she was still defiant. She met the gaze of the policeman now, and though she met it in silence, her eyes declared convincingly--and that to one whose daily way was choked with crime--that she knew not evil. The elderly gentleman understood it all. "Constable," he said, "you will conduct this young lady"--he emphasised the word--"to the end of your beat. There you can hand her over to your comrade, and so on in turn until we reach the Pitt Hotel in Craven Street." The man saluted. But the woman spoke. "I cannot go with you, sir," she said feebly, "for I must return at once." "Return?--where to? Not to that man?--that Jabez!" "To Jabez," she answered defiantly. "But--but you will faint on the way--you are starved. At least allow me to do something for you--you, who have done so much for me. You will, you must take something to eat. I am afraid there is no cab to be found in this fog. Try and walk, Miss Miriam----" She offered no further resistance, but drew her shawl more closely round her, and took the proffered arm of the man. X103 looked on somewhat grimly. It would be incorrect to say he was not nettled--he was distinctly, for by this arrangement he need not look for anything substantial. But X103 had not been in the force these many years without learning something of philosophy. So he vented his indignation and sense of general injury by putting to utter rout certain shadowy forms that had gathered round the halo of his lantern in the space of the last five minutes. They thought, no doubt, he was unnecessarily abrupt in his methods, but they dispersed without trouble, if a trifle reluctantly. When the two had reached the far end of the bridge, constable X103 could not resist one parting shaft.