After their meeting and
talk of the afternoon before, he felt that she would do business with him
in a sympathetic spirit--and if he could raise twenty pounds on the rings
he would be free of all monetary anxiety for many a long week to come.
It was half-past five o'clock of that Monday evening when Lauriston, for
the second time, turned into the narrow passage which led to the pawnshop
door. He had already looked carefully through the street window, in the
hope of seeing Zillah inside the front shop. But there was no Zillah to be
seen; the front shop was empty. Nor did Zillah confront him when he
stepped into the little boxed-in compartment in the pawnshop. There was a
curious silence in the place--broken only by the quiet, regular ticking of
a clock. That ticking grew oppressive during the minute or two that he
waited expecting somebody to step forward. He rapped on the counter at
last--gently at first, then more insistently. But nobody came. The clock--
hidden from his sight--went on ticking.
Lauriston bent over the counter at last and craned his neck to look into
the open door of a little parlour which lay behind the shop.
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