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294 the perambulator came his son. The child knew him, and opened his mouth in an ecstatic "Daddy," which for him comprised the English language ("Mammy" he had never learned), and Edgar pressed the air-bulb which worked the shutter. If the camera was in good order, the child's mouth ought to be quite sharp. He said a word or two to the nurse, said also that Daddy was busy, and went back to develop the photograph. The shutter was beyond doubt very badly out of order. It must certainly be seen to. That ought to be done at its maker's in town; one could not trust these provincial people. But he would only arrive in London on Friday evening, and they were to start on Saturday morning. It was a pity to send those things by post; they often got jarred. Perhaps he could manage to get up to town a little earlier. He might manage to get up on Friday morning; there were sure to be other little jobs to be done. Or even earlier than that; a whole day in London before one went abroad always meant a full day. But the Prince's Gate house was shut up; the servants had all come down, according to Lucia's admirable arrangement. He would have to stay somewhere else; there was nothing so cheerless as a solitary night in a disbanded house.

And then, suddenly as the lightning-flash, other pieces and ends of thought rushed together and joined themselves to this. There had been in his mind causeless suspicion of that empty house; that came side by side with the question of the defective camera, and was joined to it. There had been the necessity for finding out, in some way other than that of asking direct questions, the truth or falsity of all that poisoned him; that was there in the same flash. He had found himself a specious excuse for doing what was mean and abhorrent. A call at Prince's Gate was more than reasonable; indeed, he had left an aquascutum there, which he really wanted to take abroad with him. No doubt his valet might fetch it, but it was better to see to things oneself.

This lightning-flash of connection between things hitherto unconnected was brief enough, and it had passed almost as soon as it occurred. But in the mysterious alchemy of the human mind, it is ordained that a thought once entertained has easier access when it calls for the second time than it has had when first it presented itself. It has written its microscopic little wrinkle or dot on the brain; when next it passes that way, that wrinkle will nod and beckon to it.