Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud; Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody but unbowed. He turned off into a by-street, and walked on till he came to the docks. His progress was quite aimless. Once he stopped and wearily asked himself whither he was going; but the next moment he was lost in thought, and moved on again. Once he stumbled over a steel hawser. He nearly lost his balance, and had his arm not shot out with an involuntary movement to clutch the bollard on his left, he would have fallen over the granite-bound edge of the wharf into the foul, black, slimy depths below. Hardly giving a thought to the danger he had just escaped, he moved on and on. Through open sheds--where freight was heaped up waiting the onslaught of stevedores and labourers--across jutting portions of cobbled space and shunting grounds, he came to a remote corner, far removed from the rattle of cranes and the shouts of the workmen. Something drew him out of himself, and fixed his attention. It was a shadow. It caught his gaze, and his eyes became fixed on it. He knew that a shadow was only the phenomenon produced when streams of radiant energy are intercepted by an object which is unable to transmit them. His scientific training had taught him that even _sound_ shadows may be produced, though to recognize the existence of them the ear must pass from the unshadowed to the shadowed part. Perhaps it was a symbol! He himself was in darkness and shadow. Would his ear ever catch those mysterious harmonies that come to those who suffer?--Hampson heard them.... A woman crept stealthily behind the wall, and the shadow disappeared. The woman bore a burden; what it was he could not see. But she held it close to her breast with the tense clasp of some fierce emotion. She had not noticed the dreamer. She stopped by some steps leading down to the waters of a small section of the dock. Joseph sat down on a capstan and looked steadily at her. The woman unclasped the burden she bore, drew aside a part of the covering, and kissed--a baby face. He knew at once what she was doing. She was bidding it good-bye. She was going to drown it. "And they say that there is a God," Joseph thought. "A conscious Intelligence that directs human affairs. Even Lord Kelvin himself thought so! Yet God does nothing to save this woman from her sin--or rather crime!" He gazed fiercely. Those eyes, through which his rebellious unconquerable soul shone out, caught the startled stare of the woman as she saw the strange man who watched her. The man said nothing. The woman thought: "If he prevents me now, I shall--I must do it later. He can't change me. If he gives me in charge he can't prove it. I've done nothing yet." Yet she looked again, and this time did not turn away.