And now the Old Lady, scraping away vigorously at the four points of the compass, dislodged a bit of rubbish and swept it into her dust-pan with all the rest.
The fragment in question came drifting through Greenwich Avenue in the October night, half revealed in the glow of some humble shop window, lost in the shadow beyond, dimly visible along the dark fringe of an arc-light, fading to a shade again,—a spectre now, and now a ghost-white face adrift in the night.
At the corner of Jane Street the shape stood revealed,—a shabby man, deathly pale, who stood as though he had nowhere else to go—stood with lowered head as though preoccupied, picking nervously at the raw skin around his finger-nails.
Chance and the Dust Pan dumped him there,—the chance that his wife had returned to Jane Street. He had no knowledge of her coming; did not know where she had been or when she would return. All he knew was that there never were any lights in her windows any more. He had written to her, but she had not replied. And he needed money.
Smull’s chauffeur, reposing resignedly at the wheel, straightened up abruptly, then left his seat and came around to the open window of the car.
“That bum is over there on the corner again, Mr. Smull,” he said.
“Where?”
“He’s in the shadow of that doorway—just south of the corner, sir.”