ill-health. But his chief thought was of the crystal. He approached that

topic in a gingerly manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities.

He was dumbfoundered to learn that it was sold.

Mrs. Cave's first impulse, directly Cave's body had been taken upstairs,

had been to write to the mad clergyman who had offered five pounds for

the crystal, informing him of its recovery; but after a violent hunt in

which her daughter joined her, they were convinced of the loss of his

address. As they were without the means required to mourn and bury Cave

in the elaborate style the dignity of an old Seven Dials inhabitant

demands, they had appealed to a friendly fellow-tradesman in Great

Portland Street. He had very kindly taken over a portion of the stock at

a valuation. The valuation was his own and the crystal egg was included

in one of the lots. Mr. Wace, after a few suitable consolatory

observations, a little off-handedly proffered perhaps, hurried at once

to Great Portland Street. But there he learned that the crystal egg had

already been sold to a tall, dark man in grey. And there the material

facts in this curious, and to me at least very suggestive, story come

abruptly to an end. The Great Portland Street dealer did not know who

the tall dark man in grey was, nor had he observed him with sufficient

attention to describe him minutely. He did not even know which way this

person had gone after leaving the shop. For a time Mr. Wace remained in

the shop, trying the dealer's patience with hopeless questions, venting

his own exasperation. And at last, realising abruptly that the whole

thing had passed out of his hands, had vanished like a vision of the

night, he returned to his own rooms, a little astonished to find the

Tales of Space and Time