I exchanged them for a
house too large for me in a street too long for life, for my uncle's
furniture (of the Great Exhibition period), and for the unnecessary and
detested services of Trewlove.

This man enjoyed, by my uncle's will, an annuity of fifty pounds.
He had the look, too, of one who denied himself small pleasures, not only
on religious grounds, but because they cost money. Somehow, I never
doubted that he owned a balance at the bank, or that, after a brief
interval spent in demonstrating that our ways were uncongenial, he would
retire on a competence and await translation to join my uncle in an equal
sky--equal, that is, within the fence of the elect. But not a bit of it!
I had been adjured in the will to look after him: and at first I supposed
that he clung to me against inclination, from a conscientious resolve to
give me every chance. By-and-by, however, I grew aware of a change in
him; or, rather, of some internal disquiet, suppressed but volcanic,
working towards a change. Once or twice he staggered me by answering some
casual question in a tone which, to say the least of it, suggested an
ungainly attempt at facetiousness. A look at his sepulchral face would
reassure me, but did not clear up the mystery. Something was amiss with
Trewlove.

The horrid truth broke upon me one day as we discussed the conduct of one
of my two housemaids. Trewlove, returning one evening (as I gathered)
from a small _reunion_ of his fellow-sectarians in the Earl's Court Road,
had caught her in the act of exchanging railleries from an upper window
with a trooper in the 2nd Life Guards, and had reported her.

"Most unbecoming," said I.

"Unwomanly," said Trewlove, with a sudden contortion of the face;
"unwomanly, sir!--but ah, how like a woman!"

I stared at him for one wild moment, and turned abruptly to the window.
The rascal had flung a quotation at me--out of _Larks in Aspic!_ He knew,
then! He had penetrated the disguise of "George Anthony," and, worse
still, he meant to forgive it. His eye had conveyed a dreadful promise of
complicity. Almost--I would have given worlds to know, and yet I dared
not face it--almost it had been essaying a wink!

I dismissed him with instructions--not very coherent, I fear--to give the
girl a talking-to, and sat down to think. How long had he known?--that
was my first question, and in justice to him it had to be considered:
since, had he known and kept the secret in my uncle'