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 bridges bearing the streets; but they seem now concerned with affairs of another world.

No one else ever took that walk with Jerry and me; we had idled along the river hours on end together, following the black band of the narrow timber causeway above the water to which, here and there, elusive, unidentified doors would open. Somewhere along there, if anywhere, Jerry was likely to look for me, I thought, if he wanted me alone and unwitnessed. So, after Jerry was gone, I kept up by myself the habit we had formed together; and on the seventh night I came this way—it was Monday evening and the ninth day after Jerry disappeared—one of those doors to the water suddenly opened beside me.

The hour, which was half-past five, was more afternoon than evening, but the darkness was almost of night; for the month had turned to November, and between the brick walls of the canyon where the black river flowed there was less light from the sky than from the few windows where yellow bulbs glowed. It was so cool as to feel frosty as I walked against the fresh breeze blowing in from the lake.

"Steve!" said a girl's voice, hailing me.

I turned, and, in the light which came through