The traffic was then rapidly dying down, the streets were darker, the cafes were closing, men and women were coming Pout of supper rooms, smoking cigarettes, getting into taxis and driving away; and another London day was passing into another night.

People spoke to me.  I made no answer.  At one moment an elderly woman said something to which I replied, “No, no,” and hurried on.  At another moment, a foreign-looking man addressed me, and I pushed past without replying.  Then a string of noisy young fellows, stretching across the broad pavement arm-in-arm, encircled me and cried: 

“Here we are, my dear.  Let’s have a kissing-bee.”

But with angry words and gestures I compelled them to let me go, whereupon one of the foreign women who were sauntering by said derisively: 

“What does she think she’s out for, I wonder?”

At length I found myself standing under a kind of loggia at the corner of Piccadilly Circus, which was now half-dark, the theatres and music-halls being closed, and only one group of arc lamps burning on an island about a statue.

There were few people now where there had been so dense a crowd awhile ago; policemen were tramping leisurely along; horse-cabs were going at walking pace, and taxis were moving slowly; but a few gentlemen (walking home from their clubs apparently) were passing at intervals, often looking at me, and sometimes speaking as they went by.

Then plainly and pitilessly the taunt of the foreign woman came back to me—­what was I there for?

I knew quite well, and yet I saw that not only was I not doing what I came out to do, but every time an opportunity had offered I had resisted it.  It was just as if an inherited instinct of repulsion had restrained me, or some strong unseen arm had always snatched me away.

This led me—­was it some angel leading me?—­to think again of Martin and to remember our beautiful and sacred parting at Castle Raa.

“Whatever happens to either of us, we belong to each other for ever,” he had said, and I had answered, “For ever and ever.”

It was a fearful shock to think of this now.  I saw that if I did what I had come out to do, not only would Mary O’Neill be dead to me after to-night, but Martin Conrad would be dead also.

When I thought of that I realised that, although I had accepted, without question, the newspaper reports of Martin’s death, he had never hitherto been dead to me at all.  He had lived with me every moment of my life since, supporting me, sustaining me and inspiring me, so that nothing I had ever done—­not one single thing—­would have been different if I had believed him to be alive and been sure that he was coming back.

But now I was about to kill Martin Conrad as well as Mary O’Neill, by breaking the pledge (sacred as any sacrament) which they had made for life and for eternity.

Could I do that?  In this hideous way too?  Never!  Never!  Never!  I should die in the streets first.