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business, was employing himself with a plate of cold
turbot, a jug of milk, and a trowel!
    Away to the right, and just barely visible, a tramcar stopped by
the common; then proceeded on its way, coming in a westerly
direction. Its lights twinkled yellowly through the grayness, but I
was less concerned with the approaching car than with the solitary
traveler who had descended from it.
    As the car went rocking by below me, I strained my eyes in an
endeavor more clearly to discern the figure, which, leaving the
highroad, had struck out across the common. It was that of a woman,
who seemingly carried a bulky bag or parcel.
    One must be a gross materialist to doubt that there are latent
powers in man which man, in modern times, neglects, or knows not
how to develop. I became suddenly conscious of a burning curiosity
respecting this lonely traveler who traveled at an hour so strange.
With no definite plan in mind, I went downstairs, took a cap from
the rack, and walked briskly out of the house and across the common
in a direction which I thought would enable me to head off the
woman.
    I had slightly miscalculated the distance, as Fate would have
it, and with a patch of gorse effectually screening my approach, I
came upon her, kneeling on the damp grass and unfastening the
bundle which had attracted my attention. I stopped and watched
her.
    She was dressed in bedraggled fashion in rusty black, wore a
common black straw hat and a thick veil; but it seemed to me that
the dexterous hands at work untying the bundle were slim and white;
and I perceived a pair of hideous cotton gloves lying on the turf
beside her. As she threw open the wrappings and lifted out
something that looked like a small shrimping net, I stepped around
the bush, crossed silently the intervening patch of grass, and
stood beside her.
    A faint breath of perfume reached me—of a perfume which, like
the secret incense of Ancient Egypt, seemed to assail my soul. The
glamour of the Orient was in that subtle essence; and I only knew
one woman who used it. I bent over the kneeling figure.
    "Good morning," I said; "can I assist you in any way?"
    She came to her feet like a startled deer, and flung away from
me with the lithe movement of some Eastern dancing girl.
    Now came the sun, and its heralding rays struck sparks from the
jewels upon the white fingers of this woman who wore the garments
of a mendicant. My heart gave a great leap. It was with difficulty
that I controlled my voice.
    "There is no cause for alarm," I added.
    She stood watching me; even through the coarse veil I could see
how her eyes glittered. I stooped and picked up the net.
    "Oh!" The whispered word was scarcely audible, but it was
enough; I doubted no longer.
    "This is a net for bird snaring," I said. "What strange bird are
you seeking—Karamaneh?"
    With a passionate gesture Karamaneh snatched off the veil, and
with it the ugly black hat. The cloud of wonderful, intractable
hair came rumpling about her face, and her glorious eyes blazed out
upon me. How beautiful they were, with the dark beauty of an
Egyptian night; how often had they looked into mine in dreams!
    To labor against a ceaseless yearning for a woman whom one
knows, upon evidence that none but a fool might reject, to be
worthless—evil; is there any torture to which the soul of man is
subject, more pitiless? Yet this was my lot, for what past sins
assigned to me I was unable to conjecture; and this was the woman,
this lovely slave of a monster, this creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
    "I suppose you will declare that you do not know me!" I said
harshly.
    Her lips trembled, but she made no reply.
    "It is very convenient to forget, sometimes," I ran on bitterly,
then checked myself; for I knew that my words were prompted by a
feckless desire to hear her defense, by a fool's hope that it might
be an acceptable one.
    I looked again at the net contrivance in my hand; it had a
strong spring fitted to it and a line attached. Quite obviously it
was