y, and trust him not only
because she was ignorant of the world, but also because she was herself
so true. At the thought of this trust his heart suddenly warmed, partly
with shame and partly with pride.

They walked very happily along laughing and talking. They turned into
Henrietta Street, misty with lamps that were dim in a thin evening fog,
and at the corner of the street, facing the Square, was Uncle Mathew's
hotel. It was a place for the use, in the main, of commercial
gentlemen, and it was said by eager searchers after local colour, to
have retained a great deal of the Dickens spirit. In the hall there was
a stout gentleman with a red nose, a soiled waiter, a desolate palm and
a large-bosomed lady all rings and black silk, in a kind of wooden
cage. Down the stairs came a dim vapour that smelt of beef, whisky and
tobacco, and in the distance was the regular click of billiard-balls
and the brazen muffled tones of a gramophone. Uncle Mathew seemed
perfectly at home here, and it was strange to Maggie that he should be
so nervous with Aunt Anne, his own sister, when he could be so happily
familiar with the powdered lady in the black silk.

"We're to have dinner in a private room upstairs," said Uncle Mathew in
a voice that was casual and at the same time important. He led the way
up the stairs.

Maggie had read in some old bound volume at home a very gruesome
account of the "Life and Misdeeds of Mr. Palmer, the Rugeley Poisoner."
The impression that still remained with her was of a man standing in
the shadowy hall of just such an hotel as this, and pouring poison into
a glass which he held up against the light. This picture had been
vividly with her during her childhood, and she felt that this must have
been the very hotel where those fearful deeds occurred, and that the
ghost of Mr. Palmer's friend must, at this very moment, be writhing in
an upstairs bedroom--"writhing," as she so fearfully remembered, bent
"like a hoop."

However, these reminiscences did not in the least terrify her; she
welcomed their definite outlines in contrast with the shadowy
possibilities of her aunts' house. And she had Martin Warlock ... She
had never been so happy in all her life.

A dismal little waiter with a very soiled shirt and a black tie under
his ear, guided them down into a dark passage and flung open the door
of a sitting-room. This room was dark and sizzling with strange noises;
a gas-jet burning low was hissing, some pap