She had locked and unlocked it in one motion. He waited, sitting in an arm-chair before a small fire, for ten minutes, and then, rising, crossed the room softly and switched out the light. There was a transom above the door, so that anybody in the passage outside could tell whether his light was on or off. Then he resumed his seat, spreading his veined hands to the fire, and listened.

    He waited another quarter of an hour before he heard a soft creak and the sound of breathing outside the door. Somebody was standing there listening. The old man kept his eyes fixed on the fire, but his senses were alive to every sound. Again he heard the creaking, this time louder. A jerry-built house in Maida Vale does not offer the best assistance to the furtive business in which Sophia Kensky was engaged. Another creak, this time farther away and repeated at intervals, told him that she was going down the stairs. He walked to the window and gently pulled up the blind, taking his station so that he could command a view of the narrow strip of garden. Presently his vigil was rewarded. He saw her dark figure walk along the flagged pavement, open the gate and disappear into the darkened street.

    Israel Kensky went back to his chair, stirred the fire and settled down to a long wait, his lined face grave and anxious.

    The woman had turned to the right and had walked swiftly to the end of the street. The name of that street, or its pronunciation, were beyond her. She neither spoke English, nor was she acquainted with the topography of the district in which she found herself. She slowed her pace as she reached the main road and a man came out of the shadows to meet her.

    "Is it you, little mother?" he asked in Russian.

    "Thank God you're here! Who is this?" asked Sophia breathlessly.

    "Boris Yakoff," said the other, "I have been waiting for an hour, and it is very cold."

    "I could not get away before," she said as she fell in beside him. "The old man was working with his foolery and it was impossible to get him to go to bed. Once or twice I yawned, but he took no notice."

    "Why has he come to London?" asked her companion. "It must be something important to bring him away from his money-bags."

    To this the woman made no reply. Presently she asked:

    "Do we walk? Is there no droski or little carriage?"

    "Have patience, have patience!" grinned the man good humouredly. "Here in London we do things in grand style. We have an auto-car for you. But it was not wise to bring it so close to your house, little mother. The old man——"

    "Oh, finish with the old man," she said impatiently; "do not forget that I am with him all the day."

    The antipathy between father and daughter was so well known that the man made no apology for discussing the relationship with that frankness which is characteristic of the Russian peasant. Nor did Sophia Kensky resent the questions of a stranger, nor hesitate to unburden herself of her grievances. The "auto-car" proved to be a very common-place taxi-cab, though a vehicle of some luxury to Yakoff.

    "They say he practises magic," said that garrulous man, as the taxi got on its way; "also that he bewitches you."

    "That is a lie," said the woman indifferently: "he frightens me sometimes, but that is because I have here"—she tapped her forehead—"a memory which is not a memory. I seem to remember something just at the end of a thread, and I reach for it, and lo! it is gone!"

    "That is magic," said Yakoff gravely. "Evidently he practises his spells upon you. Tell me, Sophia Kensky, is it true that you Jews use the blood of Christian children for your beastly ceremonies?"

    The woman laughed.

    "What sort of man are you that you believe such things?" she asked contemptuously. "I thought all the comrades in London were educated?"

    Yakoff made a little clicking noise with his mouth to betray his annoyance. And well he might resent this reflection upon his education, for he held a university degree and had translated six revolutionary Russian novels into English and French.