taken out of his hands. Lodgings could not be more than
perfect, and such he had found.

It was not his habit to chat with landladies. At times he held forth to
them on some topic of interest, suavely, instructively; if he gave in to
their ordinary talk, it was with a half-absent smile of condescension.
Mrs. Elderfield seeming as little disposed to gossip as himself, a month
elapsed before he knew anything of her history; but one evening the
reserve on both sides was broken. His landlady modestly inquired whether
she was giving satisfaction, and Mr. Jordan replied with altogether
unwonted fervour. In the dialogue that ensued, they exchanged personal
confidences. The widow had lost her husband four years ago; she came
from the Midlands, but had long dwelt in London. Then fell from her lips
a casual remark which made the hearer uneasy.

'I don't think I shall always stay here. The neighbourhood is too
crowded. I should like to have a house somewhere further out.'

Mr. Jordan did not comment on this, but it kept a place in his daily
thoughts, and became at length so much of an anxiety that he invited
a renewal of the subject.

'You have no intention of moving just yet, Mrs. Elderfield?'

'I was going to tell you, sir,' replied the landlady, with her
respectful calm, 'that I have decided to make a change next spring. Some
friends of mine have gone to live at Wood Green, and I shall look for a
house in the same neighbourhood.'

Mr. Jordan was, in private, gravely disturbed. He who had flitted from
house to house for many years, distressing the souls of landladies, now
lamented the prospect of a forced removal. It was open to him to
accompany Mrs. Elderfield, but he shrank from the thought of living in
so remote a district. Wood Green! The very name appalled him, for he had
never been able to endure the country. He betook himself one dreary
autumn afternoon to that northern suburb, and what he saw did not at all
reassure him. On his way back he began once more to review the list of
old lodgings.

But from that day his conversations with Mrs. Elderfield grew more
frequent, more intimate. In the evening he occasionally made an excuse
for knocking at her parlour door, and lingered for a talk which ended
only at supper time. He spoke of his own affairs, and grew more ready to
do so as his hearer manifested a genuine interest, without impertinent
curiosity. Little by little he imparted to Mrs. Elderfield a complete
knowle