With all my perception alert, I kept a sharp look-out from the window, but vainly strove to find anything that might serve for a landmark. Once we stopped for about five minutes, at a police-station somewhere in Clerkenwell, where, by the light of a lamp, I read, without leaving the cab, the ghastly descriptions of all the dead bodies recently found in London and waiting identification. Hereupon my courage began to ooze, and the weather seemed much colder. The type was hard to read at that distance, and the imagination had fair play, as it does when words come slowly. Anon the inspector reappeared, so altered in dress and countenance, that I did not know him until he made me a bow. With a glance of encouragement, and a little grin of dry humour, he mounted the box again. After another long drive, in the course of which we ran silently over a wooden road,--probably High Holborn,--we stopped in a broad but deserted thoroughfare, very badly lighted. Here Mr. Cutting opened the door, helped me out, and discharged the cab, but whispered something to the driver before he let him go. "Now take my arm, Miss Valence, if you please. I have escorted many a lady of higher birth than yours." "Of higher title perhaps, Mr. Cutting; and their grandfathers money-lenders, or perhaps far worse." "I am sure I don’t know; we must take things as we find them. I thought you despised such nonsense. But the cabbage that runs to seed is the tallest in the field. No Englishman sees the nonsense of it, unless he happens to be a detective or a grave-digger." "Do you mean to say that those of lofty birth are worse than those of low birth?" "No, I mean nothing of the sort. But I do mean that they ought to be better, and on the whole are not so. Nature holds the balance, and temptation and education chuck into the opposite scales, and I think the first chucks fastest. At any rate I would rather have a good drunken navvy than a lord to take to the station. I mean of course when my own rank was not what it is." This little dissertation was meant to divert my thoughts. I made no reply, being ignorant of such matters; neither did I care to talk about them then. Nevertheless, I believe Inspector Cutting was wrong. As we entered a narrow street he suddenly turned and looked at me. "Poor child! how you tremble! Draw your cape more forward; the bitter cold requires it. Are you trembling from fear?" "No; only from cold." But I tried in vain to think so. "A steady hand and steadfast nerve are wanted for your task. If you cannot rely on them, say so at once. In five minutes you will have no retreat." "I shall be better directly. But I am so cold. Inspector Cutting, it must be freezing hard--ten degrees, I should think." "It does not freeze at all. I see we must warm you a little. But no more ’Inspector Cutting,’ if you please, until to-morrow."