Bertrand Saton leaned against the stone coping of the bridge, and looked downwards, as though watching the seagulls circling round and round, waiting for their usual feast of scraps. The gulls, however, were only his excuse. He stood there, looking hard at the gray, muddy water beneath, trying to make up his mind to this final and inevitable act of despair. He had walked the last hundred yards almost eagerly. He had told himself that he was absolutely and entirely prepared for death. Yet the first sight of that gray, cold-looking river, had chilled him. He felt a new and unaccountable reluctance to quit the world which certainly seemed to have made up its mind that it had no need of him. His thoughts rushed backwards. “Swim out to sea on a sunny day,” he repeated to himself slowly. Yes, but this! It was a different thing, this! The longer he looked below, the more he shrank from such a death!

He stood upright with a little shiver, and began—it was not for the first time that day—a searching investigation into the contents of his pocket. The result was uninspiring. There was not an article there which would have fetched the price of a dose of poison. Then his fingers strayed into a breast-pocket which he seldom used, and brought out a letter, unopened, all grimy, and showing signs of having been there for some considerable time. He held it between his fingers, doubtful at first from where it had come. Then suddenly he remembered. He remembered the runaway horses in the Bois, and the strange-looking old woman who had sat in the carriage with grim, drawn lips and pallid face. He remembered the dash into the roadway, the brief, maddening race by the side of the horses, his clutch at the reins, the sense of being dragged along the dusty road. It was, perhaps, the one physically courageous action of his life. The horses were stopped, and the woman’s life was saved. He looked at the letter in his hand.

“Why not?” he asked himself softly.

He hesitated, and glanced downward once more toward the river. The sight seemed to decide him. He turned his weary footsteps again westward.

Walking with visible effort, and resting whenever he had a chance, he reached at last the Oxford Street end of Bond Street. Holding the letter in his hand, he made his way, slowly and more painfully than ever, down the right-hand side. People stared at him a little curiously. He was a strange figure, passing through the crowds of well-dressed, sauntering men and women. He was unnaturally thin—the pallor of his cheeks and the gleam in his eyes spoke of starvation. His clothes had been well-cut, but they were almost in rags. His cap had cost him a few pence at a second-hand store.

He made his way toward his destination, looking neither to the right nor to the left. The days had gone when he found it interesting to study the faces of the passers-by, looking out always for adventures, amusing himself with shrewd speculations as to the character and occupation of those who seemed worthy of notice. This was his last quest now—the quest of life or death.

He stopped in front of a certain number, and comparing it with the tattered envelope which he held in his hand, finally entered. The lift-boy, who was lounging in the little hall, looked at him in surprise.

“I want to find Madame Helga,” the young man said shortly. “This is number 38, isn’t it?”

The boy looked at him doubtfully, and led the way to the lift.

“Third floor,” he said. “I’ll take you up.”

The lift stopped, and Bertrand Saton found in front of him a door upon which was a small brass plate, engraved simply with the name of Helga. He knocked twice, and received no answer. Then, turning the handle, he entered, and stood looking about him with some curiosity.

It was a small room, luxuriously but sombrely furnished. Heavy curtains were drawn more than half-way across the windows, and the room was so dark that at first he was not sure whether it was indeed empty. On a small black oak table in the middle of the rich green carpet, stood a crystal ball. There was nothing else unusual about the apartment, except the absence of any pictures upon the walls, and a faint aromatic odor, as though somewhere dried weeds were being burned.

Some curtains opposite him were suddenly thrust aside. A woman stood there looking at him. She was of middle height, fair, with a complexion which even in that indistinct light he could see owed little of its smoothness to nature. She wore a loose gown which seemed to hang from her shoulders, of some soft green material, drawn around her waist with a girdle. Her eyes were deep-set and penetrating.

“You wish to see me?” she asked.

He held out the note.

“If you are Madame Helga,” he answered.

She came a little further into the room, looking at him with a slight frown contracting her pencilled eyebrows. He had no appearance of being a client.

“You have brought a letter, then?” she asked.

“My name is Bertrand Saton,” he explained. “This letter was given to me in Paris more than a year ago, by an elderly lady. I have carried it with me all that time. At first it did not seem likely that I should ever need to use it. Unfortunately,” he added, a little bitterly, “things have changed.”

She took the letter, and tore open the envelope. Its contents consisted only of a few lines, which she read with some appearance of surprise. Then she turned once more to the young man.

“You are the Mr. Bertrand Saton of whom the writer of this letter speaks?” she asked.

He nodded.

“I am,” he answered.

She looked him over from head to foot. There was scarcely an inch of his person which did not speak of poverty and starvation.

“You have had trouble,” she remarked.

“I have,” he admitted.

“The lady who wrote that letter,” she said, “is at present in Spain.”

He turned to go.

“I am not surprised,” he answered. “My star is not exactly in the ascendant just now.”

“Don’t be too sure,” she said. “And whatever you do, don’t go away. Sit down if you are tired. You don’t seem strong.”

“I am not,” he admitted. “Would you like,” he added, “to know what is the matter with me?”

“It is nothing serious, I hope?”

“I am starving,” he declared, simply. “I have eaten nothing for twenty-four hours.”

She looked at him for a moment as though doubting his words. Then she moved rapidly to a desk which stood in a corner of the room.

“You are a very foolish person,” she said, “to allow yourself to get into such a state, when all the time you had this letter in your pocket. But I forgot,” she added, unlocking the desk. “You had not read it. You had better have some money to buy yourself food and clothes, and come here again.”

“Food and clothes!” he repeated, vaguely. “I do not understand.”

She touched the letter with her forefinger.

“You have a very powerful friend here,” she said. “I am told to give you whatever you may be in need of, and to telegraph to her, in whatever part of the world she may be, if ever you should present this letter.”

Saton began to laugh softly.

“It is the turn of the wheel,” he said. “I am too weak to hear any more. Give me some money, and I will come back. I must eat or I shall faint.”

She gave him some notes, and watched him curiously as he staggered out of the room. He forgot the lift, and descended by the stairs, unsteadily, like a drunken person, reeling from the banisters to the wall, and back again. Out in the street, people looked at him curiously as he turned northward toward Oxford Street. His eyes searched the shop-windows. He hurried along like a man feverishly anxious to make use of his last stint of strength. He was in search of food!