THAT'S he crawling through the dead leaves! Stop him! Drag him down! He's mine! Mine!" But from within the prison, from within the gray walls that made the home of the siren, each of twelve hundred men cursed it with his soul.
Each, clinging to the bars of his cell, each, trembling with a fearful joy, each, his thumbs up, urging on with all the strength of his will the hunted, rat-like figure that stumbled panting through the crisp October night, bewildered by strange lights, beset by shadows, staggering and falling, running like a mad dog in circles, knowing that wherever his feet led him the siren still held him by the heels.
As a rule, when Winnie Keep was dressing for dinner, Fred, in the room adjoining, could hear her unconsciously and light-heartedly singing to herself.

It was a habit of hers that he loved.

But on this night, although her room was directly above where he sat upon the terrace, he heard no singing.

He had been on the terrace for a quarter of an hour.
Gridley, the aged butler who was rented with the house, and who for twenty years had been an inmate of it, had brought the cocktail and taken away the empty glass.

And Keep had been alone with his thoughts.
They were entirely of the convict.