In Strange Company by Guy Boothby

Just a week, night for night, after the events recorded in the previous chapter, Marcos Veneda was making his way slowly along the Sea-Front, towards a distant portion of the city. The short winter day, made all the shorter by a thick pall of cloud stretched across the sky, was fast drawing to a close. Far out beyond the harbour a faint streak of silver light still lingered, as if loth to say farewell; but nearer the wharves the water lay black and sullen like the mantle of approaching night. In the streets, though the hour still wanted twenty minutes of six, but few people were abroad; for such was the lawless condition of Valparaiso at that time, that walking after nightfall had become not only an unpleasant, but in many districts an exceedingly dangerous undertaking.

But though, after he had proceeded a little way, Marcos Veneda stopped abruptly in his walk and stood for some moments gazing out to sea, there was nothing in his face to show that he was in any way conscious of either the atmospheric effects or the personal danger to which I have just alluded. It might rather have been inferred, from the frown that contracted his forehead and the expression which fixed itself round his mouth, that his thoughts were very far removed from any such minor matters. Certain was it that he was more than a little disturbed in his mind, and it was equally probable that, so far as he saw at present, he was no nearer a solution of his problem than he had been at any time during the previous twenty-four hours. Twice since he had come to a standstill his lips had moved in commencement of a sentence, and twice he had dug his stick impatiently into the ground before him, but the frown did not relax nor the expression change.