till the vehicle turned round for the backward journey. This time I found myself in Canonbury, a district within the radius I had previously explored. The coincidence gave me fresh hope--it seemed a happy augury of ultimate success. The saints would guide my footsteps after all; for he who wills aught intensely cajoles Providence. The dusk had fallen and the night lamps had been lit in the heavens and on the earth, though without imparting cheerfulness to the rigid rows of highly respectable houses. I walked through street after street of gray barracks, tall narrow structures holding themselves with the military stiffness and ranged in serried columns, the very greenery that relieved their fronts growing sympathetically symmetrical and sombre. I sighed for my native orange-groves, I longed for a whiff of the blue Mediterranean, I strove to recall the breezy expanses of the South American Pampas whence I had come, and had it not been for the interest of my search, I should have fled like St. Anthony from the lady, though for very opposite reasons. It seemed scarcely possible that romance should brood behind those dull façades; the grosser spirit of prose seemed to shroud them as in a fog. Suddenly, as I paced with clogged footsteps in these heavy regions, I heard a voice calling somebody, and looking in the direction of the sound I could not but fancy it was myself whose attention was sought. A gentleman standing at the hall-door of one of the houses, at the top of the white steps, was beckoning in my direction. I halted, and gazing on all sides ascertained I was the sole pedestrian. Puzzled as to what he could want of me, I tried to scan his features by the rays of a street lamp which faced the house and under which I stood. They revealed a pleasant but not English-looking face, bearded and bronzed, but they revealed nothing as to the owner's designs. He stood there still beckoning, and the latent hypnotism of the appeal drew me towards the gate. I paused with my hand on the lock. What in the name of all the saints could he possibly want with me? I had sundry valuables about my person, but then they included a loaded revolver, so why refuse the adventure? "Do come in," he said in English, seeing my hesitation. "_We are only waiting for you._" [Illustration: _I accepted the strange invitation._]