She recognised him also on the spot. They approached each other much as if they had arranged a meeting at eleven o'clock of that wet January night in the gleaming, deserted streets. "It is you, Mr. Vincent!" she said. "I wonder why I happen to meet you, of all persons in the world, to-night. It is very odd. What, I wonder, can have brought us both together at such an hour and in such a place? You never came to see me that Monday--nor any Monday. You went to see my beauty instead, and you were so lucky as to be affronted with the syren at the first glance. Had you been less fortunate, I think I might have partly taken you into my confidence to-night." "Perhaps I _am_ less fortunate, if that is all that hinders," said Vincent; "but it is strange to see you out here so late in such a dismal night. Let me go with you, and see you safe home." "Thank you. I am perfectly safe--nobody can possibly be safer than such a woman as I am, in poverty and middle age," said his strange acquaintance. "It is an immunity that women don't often prize, Mr. Vincent, but it is very valuable in its way. If anybody saw you talking to an equivocal female figure at eleven o'clock in George Street, think what the butterman would say; but a single glimpse of my face would explain matters better than a volume. I am going down towards Grange Lane, principally because I am restless to-night, and don't know what to do with myself. I shall tell you what I thought of your lecture if you will walk with me to the end of the street." "Ah, my lecture?--never mind," said the hapless young minister; "I forget all about that. What is it that brings you here, and me to your side?--what is there in that dark-veiled house yonder that draws your steps and mine to it? It is not accidental, our meeting here." "You are talking romance and nonsense, quite inconceivable in a man who has just come from the society of deacons," said Mrs. Hilyard, glancing up at him with that habitual gleam of her eyes. "We have met, my dear Mr. Vincent, because, after refreshing my mind with your lecture, I thought of refreshing my body by a walk this fresh night. One saves candles, you know, when one does one's exercise at night: whereas walking by day one wastes everything--time, tissue, daylight, invaluable treasures: the only light that hurts nobody's eyes, and costs nobody money, is the light of day. That illustration of yours about the clouds and the sun was very pretty. I assure you I thought the whole exceedingly effective. I should not wonder if it made a revolution in Carlingford." "Why do you speak to me so? I know you did not go to listen to my lecture," said the young minister, to whom sundry gleams of enlightenment had come since his last interview with the poor needle-woman of Back Grove Street.