At about half-past seven the rain ceased. Eight o'clock struck: no one in the street was stirring. A milkman passed down on foot, leaving his little can at every gate, but carefully refraining from uttering that musical cry, which the upper classes have, very properly, forbidden in the neighbourhood of their town residences. It was a quarter to nine and the whiskey in Mr. Bevan's stomach had long ago grown cold; nay, he felt positively weak for want of breakfast, when the first signs of life appeared in Mr. Bailey's house: these took the form, first of a cat leaping out as though in panic from the area gate, and immediately afterwards the appearance of a young woman's head utterly incomplete in toilet, and, in everything save the sex and youth of its owner, repulsive. Next, two blinds were drawn up in a bedroom on the second floor. The window was thrown open; and for a little while nothing more of real importance occurred. Within the house, Mr. Bailey's man Zachary had woken his master and had flooded the room with light. "It is ten o'clock, sir," he said in his customary tone of mingled severity and deference. "That's a lie," said Mr. Bailey, not moving his head from the pillow, nor withdrawing it by one inch from beneath the bedclothes. Zachary made no reply. He was accustomed to conversations of this kind. He made an unnecessary noise with the hot water, banged the furniture about, and then before leaving the room said: "May I go out for the day, sir?" in a tone rather of menace than of inquiry. "You can go at a quarter past ten--it must be nearly that now," chuckled Mr. Bailey with sleepy humour. Mr. Bailey's man Zachary was annoyed to have been caught in this trap; he consoled himself by remembering that he might leave the house at once and his master be none the wiser. "If you're not back by six this evening," said Mr. Bailey good-naturedly, stretching his arms and yawning, "you'll be in the workhouse in a week or two." "Very good, sir," said Zachary in a more respectful tone than he had yet adopted; he shut the door very softly after him and went tiptoe down the deep carpet of the stairs. For the next ten minutes he was dressing as befitted a man of his temper, and well before ten o'clock he had emerged from the front door in a quiet, sensible frock-coat, a good but not obtrusive top hat, quite new gloves of a deep brown, and a serviceable but neat umbrella. His boots, however, were laced, not buttoned; blacked, not polished. Mr. Bevan's heart rose with a bound. His long vigil was ended! He permitted Zachary to turn the corner of Bruton Street into Berkeley Square, and then, gauging his pace at much the same as that set by this excellent domestic, he followed.