set down in writing the thoughts which flashed
through me at that moment. Yet when I had made up my mind the woman
was still there, waiting meekly before the closed door.

"You were speaking of her," I said to the boy, who was half-sitting,
half-crouching against the side of the tunnel. "What was it you said?
I did not hear."

Man and boy commenced to tell me together. Their strange London talk
puzzled me, and I could only extract a confused sense of what they
said. The woman, to whom they rudely pointed, had called at the
building opposite every day for a fortnight at about this hour to make
some inquiry. Day by day she had turned away, after one brief question
asked and answered, with bowed head and dejected manner. Yet, day by
day, she returned and repeated it. Ever the same disappointment, the
same despair!

They knew nothing more. Her regular visits had awakened a certain
curiosity in them, and they had commenced to look for them, and
indulge in a little mild speculation as to her one day meeting with
a different reception. Nothing more! There was a shade of pity in the
boy's tone, and I gave him a shilling; then I crossed the road.

As I left the kerbstone, the door opened and I heard her question:--

"Has Father Adrian called or written, or sent any address yet,
please?"

The man, who had opened the door only a few inches, kept in the
background, and I could see nothing of him, but I heard his grim,
monosyllable reply:

"No! Father Adrian has not visited or communicated with us."

She turned away with a meek "Thank you," and found herself face to
face with me. My heart smote me when I saw how poor were her clothes,
and how thin her features.

At first she did not know me; but I raised my veil, and whispered her
name softly in her ear.

She threw up her hands, and swayed backwards and forwards upon the
pavement.

"Adrea! Adrea!" she cried wildly. "My God!"

A cab drove up, and I called it. She had just strength enough to enter
it, leaning heavily upon my arm; then she fainted.

CHAPTER XII

"WE ARE LIKE SHOOTING STARS, WHOSE MEETING IS THEIR RUIN"

To-night I have had another shock! I was sitting alone in my room
down-stairs, dreaming over the fire, when a footstep sounded upon the
stairs. At first I thought that it might be Paul, and I sprang up, and
stood listening intently. What a little fool I was! I felt the colour
burning in my cheeks, and my heart was beating. I listened to the