on into the small hours;
he could hit upon no explanation which had the least plausibility.

Was she engaged to be married to the man who met her at the Exhibition?
Her behaviour in his company by no means supported such a surmise; yet
there must be something more than ordinary acquaintance between the two.

Might not Patty Ringrose be able and willing to solve for him the
riddle of Eve's existence? But he had no idea where Patty lived. He
recalled her words in Gower Street: "You _are_ going it, Eve!" and they
stirred miserable doubts; yet something more than mere hope inclined
him to believe that the girl's life was innocent. Her look, her talk
reassured him; so did her friendship with such a person as the
ingenuous Patty. On learning that he dwelt close by her she gave no
sign of an uneasy conscience.

In any case, the contrast between her actual life and that suggested by
Mrs. Brewer's talk about her was singular enough. It supplied him with
a problem of which the interest would not easily be exhausted. But he
must pursue the study with due regard to honour and delicacy; he would
act the spy no more. As Eve had said, they were pretty sure to meet
before long; if his patience failed it was always possible for him to
write a letter.

Four days went by and he saw nothing of her. On the fifth, as he was
walking homeward in the afternoon, he came face to face with Miss
Madeley in Gower Street. She stopped at once, and offered a friendly
hand.

"Will you let me walk a little way with you?" he asked.

"Certainly. I'm just going to change a book at Mudie's." She carried a
little handbag. "I suppose you have been going about London a great
deal? Don't the streets look beautiful at this time of the year?"

"Beautiful? I'm not sure that I see much beauty."

"Oh, don't you? I delight in London. I had dreamt of it all my life
before I came here. I always said to myself I should some day live in
London."

Her voice to-day had a vibrant quality which seemed to result from some
agreeable emotion. Hilliard remarked a gleam in her eyes and a colour
in her cheeks which gave her an appearance of better health than a few
days ago.

"You never go into the country?" he said, feeling unable to join in her
praise of London, though it was intelligible enough to him.

"I go now and then as far as Hampstead Heath," Eve answered with a
smile. "If it's fine I shall be there next Sunday with Patty Ringrose."

Hilliard grasped the op