The fragment in question came drifting through Greenwich Avenue in the October night, half revealed in the glow of some humble shop window, lost in the shadow beyond, dimly visible along the dark fringe of an arc-light, fading to a shade again,--a spectre now, and now a ghost-white face adrift in the night. At the corner of Jane Street the shape stood revealed,--a shabby man, deathly pale, who stood as though he had nowhere else to go--stood with lowered head as though preoccupied, picking nervously at the raw skin around his finger-nails. Chance and the Dust Pan dumped him there,--the chance that his wife had returned to Jane Street. He had no knowledge of her coming; did not know where she had been or when she would return. All he knew was that there never were any lights in her windows any more. He had written to her, but she had not replied. And he needed money. * * * * * Smull’s chauffeur, reposing resignedly at the wheel, straightened up abruptly, then left his seat and came around to the open window of the car. “That bum is over there on the corner again, Mr. Smull,” he said. “Where?” “He’s in the shadow of that doorway--just south of the corner, sir.” “All right,” nodded Smull. He could now just distinguish a shape there. For some time he watched it, speculating on the affair and still puzzled. For how the girl who had so contemptuously repulsed him could ever have married the derelict across the street, Smull was unable to conjecture. More perplexing to him still were her relations with Annan. He did not wish to believe they were meretricious. In the muddy depths of him he didn’t believe that. But he would not have hesitated to accuse her. Anyway, it didn’t matter. Annan didn’t matter, nor did the bum across the way; nor did the girl’s intrigues, chaste or otherwise, matter to this man. He was after his quarry. Perhaps in the muddy depths of him he knew the chase was hopeless. Perhaps he was doomed to hunt anyway--never to rest, never to quit the trail over which he had sped so eagerly, so long ago, after his first quarry. * * * * * He had smoked four large cigars and was lighting a fifth. It was ten o’clock. No taxi had turned into Jane Street. The windows of the house he watched remained unlighted. And, across the street, the shadowy shape had not stirred. Undoubtedly the fellow had recognised Smull’s car. Which concerned Smull not a whit. However, he was growing restless. He had over-smoked, too. Now he flung away the cigar just lighted, opened the limousine door and got out. To his chauffeur he said: “That’s all. Call up at eight-thirty to-morrow morning.” “That bum is still over there, sir----” “All right, Harvey. Go back to the garage.... And I’ll want the coupé to-morrow.” “Very good, sir.” Smull watched the car glide away down Greenwich Avenue, turn east, disappear.