He went on down the stairs. Out on the path he paused and looked up and down the street. The impulse that had sent him out had died away; it was beastly cold, and much more comfortable by the fire. He hesitated, and in that moment he saw the figure of the girl again. She had stopped now in the light of a street lamp, and seemed to be looking at something she carried in her arms--a child! Surely not a child! Micky's curiosity was aroused. He buttoned the collar of his coat more closely round his chin and went on. The girl had moved too, almost as if she felt instinctively that she was being followed, and as Micky drew abreast with her she shrank a little to one side as if afraid. "What's the matter?" asked Micky bluntly. They were some few yards from the lamp now. But, as she turned to look up at him with startled eyes, its yellow light fell on her face; and Micky saw with amazement that she was quite young and exceedingly pretty, in spite of the distress in her eyes, and the tears that were still wet on her cheeks. "What's the matter?" he asked again, more gently, and waited for the pathetically shaken denial which he felt sure would come. "Nothing--nothing at all." "Nothing!" There was a note of exasperation in his voice. "You were crying--I heard you, and people don't walk about the streets at this time of night and cry if there's nothing the matter. If that's a baby you've got with you, you ought to know better than to----" He broke off. She was laughing, a weak, uncertain little laugh. "A baby!" she said tremulously. "It isn't a baby; it's a cat." "A cat!" Micky's voice was full of disgust. He looked down at her from his superior height with sudden suspicion. If this was just a hoax? "Well, what's the matter anyway?" he asked again. She looked away from him without answering. Micky began to feel a bit of a fool; he wished he had not yielded to the impulse to follow her. After all, it was no business of his if a stranger chose to walk about his road and weep; he looked at her impatiently. Her hair beneath its not very smart hat shone golden in the lamplight, and the little oval of cheek and rounded chin which was all he could see of her averted face somehow touched a forgotten chord in his heart and made him think of his boyhood and the girl-mother who had not lived long enough to be more than a memory.... "Don't think I'm interfering or trying to annoy you," he said again. "But if there is anything I can do to help you...." She shook her head. "There isn't anything.... I ought to have known better than to let you hear that I was crying ... there's nothing the matter, I----" Then quite suddenly she broke down again into bitter sobbing. "Oh, I'm so miserable--so utterly miserable--I wish I were dead!" Micky was appalled; he had heard women say that sort of thing before, and had said it himself scores of times, but never with that note of tragedy which he heard in this girl's voice.