ILLUSTRATED BY 
JDewar Mills 
i. 
T was long past midnight when 
a wretchedly-dressed woman 
slouched from one of the 
turnings that lead down from 
the Strand to the Embank- 
ment, with her head bent to 
the rain that was blown like 
a thin mist on the wind. 
The broad stretch of road was bare, except 
for an occasional taxi-cab speeding homewards 
empty to its garage. A hooded van, laden 
with goods for some early morning delivery 
in a distant suburb, rattled towards West- 
minster, and a great double-deck tram, 
blazing and warm with light in that cold 
rain, slid along wet rails with the last night- 
workers for its passengers. 
The rain made puddles and pools that 
stole the pallid glow of the electric light and 
turned it into twisted reflections, and the 
bridges loomed impalpably above the water, 
their light hung in the air like a chain of 
stars, between the impenetrable sky and the 
black murk of the river. 
The woman picked her way across the 
street, clutching a ragged shawl closer to 
her thin frame. She walked with the hesi- 
tating steps of one who was unfamiliar with 
the path, looking to left and right with quick, 
nervous turns of her head, as though she 
feared observation. There was mud on her 
shabby skirt, not the fresh mud of a night, 
but the accumulated, caked mud of many 
days, and her boots sagged with the wet. 
As she came to the parapet, and stood for 
a moment looking at the long, empty road 
that stretched to Hungerford Bridge, her 
face shone clearly in the lamplight. It was 
a face thin and pallid, marked with dark 
shadows under the eyes that burned then 
with a suggestion of excitement. Unques- 
tionably it was a face that held beauty behind 
all its haggardness. It might even be made 
beautiful now, if those hard lines about the 
cheeks could be taken away and the deep 
shadows around the eyes painted out. As 
much of her hair that showed under the 
tattered shawl was of a pale, uncertain colour, 
yet its texture was fine and silky ; brought 
over the forehead, instead of brushed back, it 
might have changed the appearance of her 
face. There seemed, even to the most casual 
observer, some refinement about this woman. 
She was, you would have said, one who had 
come down in the world. 
And now, having peered for a time at the 
dark tide that hurried dimly and mysteriously 
below the parapet, she turned with a sigh, 
and with the same timidity of step that marked 
all her movements she went towards a seat 
and sought a place. 
Three men were sitting, there — three men 
who were wrecks of humanity. One of them 
was asleep, a huddled, inert lump, with his 
head on one side and his mouth gaping in 
slumber. His face was the index to a tragic 
life — unshaven, bloated, and weak even in 
sleep. He seemed a thing without spirit — 
a mere husk of a man. 
The woman did not sit by him. 
The next man leaned against the curved 
back of the seat, jabbering in incoherent 
jocularity to himself and the night. He was 
bearded and blear-eyed and ragged, and it 
was clear that he had begged sufficiently to 
get himself drunk. The woman contemplated 
him for a moment, and the man waved his 
hand at her feebly and murmured unintelli- 
gible things. He was more revolting than 
pitiful. 
She did not sit by him. 
The third man sat at the far end of the 
seat. He was young and good-looking, and 
his face was clean-shaven. His clothes were 
not the rags of despair, but rather the shabbi- 
ness of acute desolation. The coat was 
buttoned right up to the collarless neck ? and 
