again.

This brought out two people--one at the door he had been knocking upon,
the other from the next on the right.

'Is Mr. Brown at home?' said Springrove.

'No, sir.'

'When will he be in?'

'Quite uncertain.'

'Can you tell me where I may find him?'

'No. O, here he is coming, sir. That's Mr. Brown.'

Edward looked down the pavement in the direction pointed out by the
woman, and saw a man approaching. He proceeded a few steps to meet him.

Edward was impatient, and to a certain extent still a countryman, who
had not, after the manner of city men, subdued the natural impulse to
speak out the ruling thought without preface. He said in a quiet tone to
the stranger, 'One word with you--do you remember a lady lodger of yours
of the name of Mrs. Manston?'

Mr. Brown half closed his eyes at Springrove, somewhat as if he were
looking into a telescope at the wrong end.

'I have never let lodgings in my life,' he said, after his survey.

'Didn't you attend an inquest a year and a half ago, at Carriford?'

'Never knew there was such a place in the world, sir; and as to
lodgings, I have taken acres first and last during the last thirty
years, but I have never let an inch.'

'I suppose there is some mistake,' Edward murmured, and turned away. He
and Mr. Brown were now opposite the door next to the one he had knocked
at. The woman who was still standing there had heard the inquiry and the
result of it.

'I expect it is the other Mr. Brown, who used to live there, that you
want, sir,' she said. 'The Mr. Brown that was inquired for the other
day?'

'Very likely that is the man,' said Edward, his interest reawakening.

'He couldn't make a do of lodging-letting here, and at last he went to
Cornwall, where he came from, and where his brother still lived, who
had often asked him to come home again. But there was little luck in the
change; for after London they say he couldn't stand the rainy west winds
they get there, and he died in the December following. Will you step
into the passage?'

'That's unfortunate,' said Edward, going in. 'But perhaps you remember a
Mrs. Manston living next door to you?'

'O yes,' said the landlady, closing the door. 'The lady who was supposed
to have met with such a horrible fate, and was alive all the time. I saw
her the other day.'

'Since the fire at Carriford?'

'Yes. Her husband came to ask if Mr. Brown was still living here--just
as you might. He seemed anxious about it