She nodded. "I believe she would--and not tell him that I had come to her. Yes!"--laying her two hands upon the table before her she looked him bravely in the eyes. "I will go with you," she said. They paid their reckoning, rose with difficulty, for both were stiff, and reluctantly left the warmth of the fire and crept out into the street. Dusk had fallen, and the air was thick, but not what Londoners would call a fog. As they came out of the door an omnibus stopped close to the curb, and two men descended. One was middle-aged, heavily built, fleshy, and well dressed; he looked like the proprietor of a low-class music-hall. The other was lean, shabby, wolf-like--a debased type: a man who had evidently sunk in the social scale. Felix felt upon his arm the grip of a desperate thing. "Run--run--never mind if we are killed, run," she uttered, gaspingly. "It's they--it's they!" CHAPTER III A REFUGE OF STRAW A blur Of gilded mist--'twas morn's first hour-- Made vague the world: and in the gleam Shivered the half-awakened stream. Through tinted vapors looming large, Ambiguous shapes obscurely rode. She gazed where many a laden barge Like some dim-moving saurian showed. --WILLIAM WATSON. In after days, whenever he was sleeping badly, or felt ill or feverish, Felix was able to recapture the exact feeling of that moment when he stood, with the defenseless girl, in the glare of the gas on the London pavement, and saw the two pursuers close to them, almost within arm's length. He knew that if the girl was recognized the sympathy of the crowd would be on the side of her uncle, and against the disreputable youth with whom she had run away. And he saw, too, that if she tried to run, recognition was almost inevitable. Inspiration came with extremity. It flashed upon him that if they stood quite still they might escape notice. The girl's dark blue serge frock and coat were of the kind one sees everywhere. Her back was not distinctive. Her companion was an utter stranger. The street was the last place in which her uncle would expect to see her. In a moment Felix knew what to do. Snatching off his cap, he pushed it firmly down over her bare head, hissing in her ear as he did so, "Stand still--turn your back--look in at the window--hold your handkerchief to your face." It is long in the telling, but it occupied an instant. By the time the two heavy men had gained the pavement the huddled girl, with stooping shoulders, was staring at the pies. He of the oily face and black locks was looking at his watch in the light of the lamps, not three feet from where Felix stood at bay. Two or more gem rings flashed on his fat hand. "Half-past six," he said, in the thick, smooth tones of the German Jew. "How far have we to go?" "Two minutes' walk," replied his companion.