“Yes, a little. I don’t know whether it’s sentiment or just feminine curiosity.” She left his side abruptly and walked back to the man, who may have been watching her out of the corner of his eyes, for he straightened himself up quickly. “Down and out?” she asked, and heard his soft laugh. “Down but not out,” he replied, and it was the voice of an educated man, with just a trace of that drawl, the pleasant stigmata which the universities give to their children. “Did I arouse your compassion? I’m sorry. If you offer me money I shall be rather embarrassed. You will find plenty of poor beggars on this sidewalk who are more worthy objects of--charity. I use the word in its purest sense.” She looked at his face. A slight moustache and a ragged fringe of beard did not disguise his youth. Chief Inspector Coldwell, who had come closer, was watching him with professional interest. “Would you like to know what I was really thinking about?” There was an odd quality of banter in his voice. “I was thinking about murder! There is a gentleman in this town who has made life rather difficult for me, and I had just decided to walk up to him at the earliest opportunity and pop three automatic bullets through his heart when you disturbed the homicidal current of my thoughts.” Coldwell chuckled. “I thought I recognized you. You’re Peter Dawlish,” he said, and the shabby figure lifted his hat with mock politeness. “Such is fame!” he said sardonically. “And you are Coldwell: the recognition is mutual! And now that I have hopelessly committed myself, I presume you will call the nearest city policeman and put me out of the way of all temptation.” “When did you come out?” asked Coldwell. The girl listened, staggered. They had been discussing this man not a quarter of an hour before; she had spent the afternoon thinking of him; and now to meet him on that wind-swept pavement, he of all the millions of people in London, was something more than a coincidence. It was fatalistic. “Mr. Dawlish, I wonder if you will believe me when I say that you’re the one man in London I was anxious to meet. I only knew to-day that you were--out. Could you call and see me to-night?” The man smiled. “Invitations follow thick and fast,” he murmured. “Only ten minutes ago I was asked into a Salvation Army shelter! Believe me, madam----” “Mr. Dawlish”--her voice was very quiet, but very clear--“you are being awfully sorry for yourself, aren’t you?” She did not see the flush that came to his face. “I suppose I am,” he said, a little gruffly. “But a man is entitled----” “A man is never entitled to be sorry for himself in any circumstances,” she said. “Here is my card.” She had slipped back the cover of her bag, and he took the little pasteboard from her hand, and, bringing it close to his eyes, read, in the dim light that a distant lamp afforded: