"Bah!" he exclaimed aloud. "What do I care?" The coffee-stall keeper looked at him, and, with a wide experience of such matters, assumed that he had been drinking. Raife sauntered away, leaving his coffee untouched, which more than ever confirmed the coffee-man's view of the subject. Again a blind impulse steered Raife, and he found himself wandering among the queer little streets and alley-ways that fringe the riverside and lead to Hammersmith Mall. The tide was high and the dull swish of the water, as it swung past the moored barges, soothed his troubled mind for a while, and he became engrossed in the strangeness of his weird surroundings. A slight mist came off the river and added to the mystery. He had now reached that part of the Mall made famous by William Morris, and those brilliant men who founded the Kelmscott Press, and restored the merits of English typography and printing. The houses of Chiswick Mall and Hammersmith Mall are famous for their old-world charm, and many of them suggest, from without, the wealth and comfort within. Time flies quickly to the engrossed and contemplative mind. Raife had seated himself on a sort of disused capstan, and was gazing at the river as he smoked his pipe. At rare intervals, he heard footsteps in the distance, and assumed they were bargees, or other workmen, going to their nightly occupations. The rumble and clink of machinery proclaimed the proximity of a brewery that does not distinguish between night and day in its operations. Once, looking round, as he imagined footsteps that were too stealthy for those of a British workman, he fancied he saw the mysterious figure of Jermyn Street and the Broadway. He chased away the thought as merely fanciful and the result of his perturbed brain. The incident trended in his thoughts, however, towards that persistent person. Presently, it flashed through his mind and brought a crowd of recollections to him: the curious meeting with Gilda at Nice; the message conveyed by the little Italian girl among the orange groves by moonlight; the message delivered at the entrance of the cafe! Yes! He was sure now. It was that Apache fellow, who looked as though he might be from the Latin quarter of Paris, and yet was not. But had not Gilda told him that he was killed in the motor smash outside Cuneo? Again he said: "Bah! What does it matter? Or, what do I care?"