P'r'aps you'd like to leave your name?"

"I think I'll call again."

"Did you expect to find her at 'ome now?" asked the young woman, whose
curiosity grew more eager as she watched Hilliard's countenance.

"Perhaps," he replied, neglecting the question, "I should find her here
to-morrow morning?"

"Well, I can say as someone's going to call, you know."

"Please do so."

Therewith he turned away, anxious to escape a volley of interrogation
for which the landlady's tongue was primed.

He walked into Gower Street, and pondered the awkward interview that
now lay before him. On his calling to-morrow, Miss Madeley would
doubtless come to speak with him at the door; even supposing she had a
parlour at her disposal, she was not likely to invite a perfect
stranger into the house. How could he make her acquaintance on the
doorstep? To be sure, he brought a message, but this commission had
been so long delayed that he felt some shame about discharging it. In
any case, his delivery of the message would sound odd; there would be
embarrassment on both sides.

Why was Eve so uncertain in her comings and goings? Necessity of
business, perhaps. Yet he had expected quite the opposite state of
things. From Mrs. Brewer's description of the girl's character, he had
imagined her leading a life of clockwork regularity. The point was very
trivial, but it somehow caused a disturbance of his thoughts, which
tended to misgiving.

In the meantime he had to find quarters for himself. Why not seek them
in Gower Place?

After ten minutes' sauntering, he retraced his steps, and walked down
the side of the street opposite to that on which Eve's lodgings were
situated. Nearly over against that particular house was a window with a
card. Carelessly he approached the door, and carelessly asked to see
the rooms that were to let. They were comfortless, but would suit his
purpose for a time. He engaged a sitting-room on the ground-floor, and
a bed-room above, and went to fetch his luggage from Victoria Station.

On the steamer last night he had not slept, and now that he was once
more housed, an overpowering fatigue constrained him to lie down and
close his eyes. Almost immediately lie fell into oblivion, and lay
sleeping on the cranky sofa, until the entrance of a girl with
tea-things awakened him.

From his parlour window he could very well observe the houses opposite
without fear of drawing attention from any one on that side; and so it
hap