Access Online - The European Library

76 BLACK SHEEP.he sawa man standing,yvho immediately handedhim a note ancl went away. Then Routh smiled,read the words the note contained,smiled again,swept up the money yvhich lay before him,andleft the room. The battle had fairly begun ashe stepped out from the shelter of the portico,and, buttoning his coat tightly across his chest,and pulling his hat doyvn to his eyebroyvs, sethimself, with bent head, against the storm.Hisway led him past his oyvn lodgings, and as hetook it on the opposite side of the street, he saw,indistinctly, Harriet's figure, as she sat closebeside the window, her head against the panes.Something dreary and forsaken in the aspectof the yvindoyv, with its flimsy^ curtains wideapart, the indistinct form close against the glass,no light yvithin the room, made Routh shiverimpatiently as he looked at it; and just then thelight in the street flickered and syverved violentlyunder the influence of a sudden blast,which drove a sharp cascade of rain rattlingagainst the yvindoyv." Moping there in the dark," said Routh,with an oath, "ancl making things a hundred