and "prisoners of the King of Kings."

Before the last words of the prayer were finished the man in the peaked cap tossed up his voice in another hymn, and the young woman joined him with an accordion:

"_Shall we gather at the river, Where bright angel feet have trod_... ."

The door was opened by the Jew himself, who, assuming a severe manner, said something to me in his guttural voice which I did not hear or heed, for I pushed past him and walked firmly upstairs.

When I had reached my room and lit the gas, I closed and locked the door, as if I were preparing to commit a crime--and perhaps I was.

I did not allow myself to think of what I intended to do that night, but I knew quite well, and when at one moment my conscience pressed me hard something cried out in my heart:

"Who can blame me since my child's life is in danger?"

I opened my trunk and took out my clothes--all that remained of the dresses I had brought from Ellan. They were few, and more than a little out of fashion, but one of them, though far from gay, was bright and stylish--a light blue frock with a high collar and some white lace over the bosom.

I remember wondering why I had not thought of pawning it during the week, when I had had so much need of money, and then being glad that I had not done so.

It was thin and light, being the dress I had worn on the day I first came to the East End, carrying my baby to Ilford, when the weather was warm which now was cold; but I paid no heed to that, thinking only that it was my best and most attractive.

After I had put it on and glanced at myself in my little swinging looking-glass I was pleased, but I saw at the same time that my face was deadly pale, and that made me think of some bottles and cardboard boxes which lay in the pockets of my trunk.

I knew what they contained--the remains of the cosmetics which I had bought in Cairo in the foolish days when I was trying to make my husband love me. Never since then had I looked at them, but now I took them out (with a hare's foot and some pads and brushes) and began to paint my pale face--reddening my cracked and colourless lips and powdering out the dark rings under my eyes.

While I was doing this I heard (though I was trying not to) the deadened sound of the singing in the front street, with the young woman's treble voice above the man's bass and the wheezing of the accordion:

"_Yes, we'll gather, at the river, Where bright angel feet have trod, With its, crystal tide for ever Flowing by the throne of God_."

The Dark Spirit must have taken possession of me by this time, poor vessel of conflicting passions as I was, for I remember that while I listened I laughed--thinking what mockery was to sing of "angel feet"

and "crystal tides" to those shivering wretches at the corner of the London street in the smoky night air.

"What a farce!" I thought. "What a heartless farce!"

Then I put on my hat, which was also not very gay, and taking out of my trunk a pair of long light gloves which I had never worn since I left Ellan, I began to pull them on.

I was standing before the looking-glass in the act of doing this, and trying (God pity me!) to smile at myself, when I was suddenly smitten by a new thought.

I was about to commit suicide--the worst kind of suicide, not the suicide which is followed by oblivion, but by a life on earth after death!

After that night Mary O'Neill would no longer exist! I should never he able to think of her again! I should have killed her and buried her and stamped the earth down on her and she would be gone from me for ever!

That made a grip at my heart--awakening memories of happy days in my childhood, bringing back the wild bliss of the short period of my great love, and even making me think of my life in Rome, with its confessions, its masses, and the sweetness of its church bells.

I was saying farewell to Mary O'Neill! And parting with oneself seemed so terrible that when I thought of it my heart seemed ready to burst.

"But who can blame me when my child's life is in danger?" I asked myself again, still tugging at my long gloves.

By the time I had finished dressing the Salvationists were going off to their barracks with their followers behind them. Under the singing I could faintly hear the shuffling of bad shoes, which made a sound like the wash of an ebbing tide over the teeth of a rocky beach--up our side street, past the Women's Night Shelter (where the beds never had time to become cool), and beyond the public-house with the placard in the window saying the ale sold there could be guaranteed to make anybody drunk for fourpence.

"_We'll stand the storm, it won't be long, And we'll anchor in the sweet by-and-by_."

I listened and tried to laugh again, but I could not do so now. There was one last spasm of my cruelly palpitating heart, in which I covered my face with both hands, and cried:

"For baby's sake! For my baby's sake!"

And then I opened my bedroom door, walked boldly downstairs and went out into the streets.

MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD

I don't call it Chance that this was the very day of my return to England.

If I had to believe that, I should have to disbelieve half of what is best in the human story, and the whole of what we are taught about a guiding Providence and the spiritual influences which we cannot reason about and prove.

We were two days late arriving, having made dirty weather of it in the Bay of Biscay, which injured our propeller and compelled us to lie to, so I will not say that the sense of certainty which came to me off Finisterre did not suffer a certain shock.

In fact the pangs of uncertainty grew so strongly upon me as we neared home that in the middle of the last night of our voyage I went to O'Sullivan's cabin, and sat on the side of his bunk for hours, talking of the chances of my darling being lost and of the possibility of finding her.

O'Sullivan, God bless him, was "certain sure" that everything would be right, and he tried to take things gaily.

"The way I'm knowing she'll be at Southampton in a new hat and feather!

So mind yer oi, Commanther."

We passed the Channel Islands in the spring of morning, and at breakfast-time we picked up the pilot, who had brought out a group of reporters. I did my best for the good chaps (though it is mighty hard to talk about exploring when you are thinking of another subject), and then handed them over to my shipmates.

Towards seven o'clock at night we heaved up to the grey stone pier at the head of Southampton Water. It was then dark, so being unable to see more than the black forms and waving hands of the crowd waiting for us with the lights behind them, I arranged with O'Sullivan that he should slip ashore as soon as we got alongside, and see if he could find my dear one.

"Will you remember her face?" I asked.

"And why wouldn't I? By the stars of God, there's only one of it in the world," he answered.

The welcome we got when we were brought to was enough to make a vain man proud, and a modest one ashamed, and perhaps I should have had a little of both feelings if the right woman had been there to share them.

My state-room was on the promenade deck, and I stood at the door of it as long as I dared, raising my cap at the call of my name, but feeling as if I were the loneliest man in the world, God help me!

O'Sullivan had not returned when Treacle came to say that everything was ready, and it was time to go ashore.

I will not say that I was not happy to be home; I will not pretend that the warm-hearted welcome did not touch me; but God knows there was a moment when, for want of a face I did not see, I could have turned about and gone back to the South Pole there and then, without an instant's hesitation.

When I got ashore I had as much as I could do to stand four-square to the storm of hand-shaking that fell on me. And perhaps if I had been in better trim I should have found lots of fun in the boyish delight of my shipmates in being back, with old Treacle shaking hands with everybody from the Mayor of the town to the messenger-boys (crying "What cheer, matey?"), while the scientific staff were bringing up their wives to be introduced to me, just as the lower-form fellows used to do with their big sisters at school.

At last O'Sullivan came back with a long face to say he could see nothing of my dear one, and then I braced myself and said:

"Never mind! She'll be waiting for us in London perhaps."

It took a shocking time to pass through the Customs, but we got off at last in a special train commissioned by our chairman--half of our company with their wives and a good many reporters having crammed themselves into the big saloon carriage reserved for me.

At the last moment somebody threw a sheaf of evening papers through my window, and as soon as we were well away I took up one of them and tried to read it, but column after column fell blank on my eyes, for my mind was full of other matters.

The talk in the carriage, too, did not interest me in the least. It was about the big, hustling, resonant world, general elections, the fall of ministries, Acts of Parliament, and the Lord knows what--things that had looked important when we were in the dumb solitude of Winter Quarters, but seemed to be of no account now when I was hungering for something else.